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Boy Builds Wall-Climbing Machine Using Recycled Vacuums
Joe McIntosh writes "Hibiki Kono just might be a boy genius. The 13-year-old decided he wanted to climb vertical surfaces like his hero, Spiderman. So, he used two 1,400-watt recycled vacuum cleaners and a little bit of elbow grease to make a machine that allows him to scale walls. Kono has been scaling the walls of his UK school and has told the media that he hopes his invention will help window washers eliminate clumsy ladders from their daily routine."
I think the interesting thing with this idea are the foot straps. Lets you use leg power for most of your lifting. The Mythbuster's solution needed much more upper body strength, and so was much more strenuous. Time for a Myth revisit?
A kid building a wall-climbing machine out of spare vacuum cleaner parts? It reminds me of something you'd read in a Cory Doctorow novel.
Kids are great. They give me hope. My kid just got a job as a research assistant in a genetics lab at her university, and though she's working like a slave for next to nothing, the experience has lit her up like a neon sign. Every night I get to hear about stuff about which I understand very little, but her excitement is just ambrosia for this proud papa. I usually only get about five minutes of thrilling reportage before she dashes out, probably to some hormone-fueled assignation with a pierced and pimply male, but knowing that her intellect, her future, her life is just exploding with the new sustains me.
That, and the fantasy of gelding the grabby boy who dares lay an insincere hand on her.
You are welcome on my lawn.