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A closer look at Dean Kamen's robotic arm

Xeni Jardin at 11:16 am Thu, May 17, 2007

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BB reader Ryan Ozawa in Hawaii says,
Back in March, Dean Kamen introduced a robotic arm he was developing with DARPA to restore some independence to war veterans that had lost one or both arms in recent conflicts (previous BB post: Link).

While the only video available was taken from the back of a darkened room, the impact was enormous. Beyond Terminator jokes, many saw the potential of what Kamen and his team at DEKA were doing. But to date, there's still very little official information available about the project.

This week, Kamen was in Honolulu speaking to local tech and business leaders about his FIRST initiative, which aims to inspire youth in engineering and math through robotics. He'd recently announced that Hawaii would host a regional competition next March.

As part of his presentation, though, he touched on the robotic arm, giving some first-hand background and showing those remarkable video clips. Titled "Gen X - Separate Exo Control," I've posted the excerpt to YouTube:

Video Link.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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