Genuine Steampunk Arm
Rockets and Steam and Valves, Oh My!
September 1st, 2007 by Roderick Russell
Following up the recent story on mechanical arms, I bring you the Vanderbilt Arm, the DARPA-funded, Vanderbilt University-developed prosthetic arm that is powered by rocket fuel, steam, valves and springs.
From the Vanderbilt project page:
…[the] power source is about the size of a pencil and contains a special catalyst that causes hydrogen peroxide to burn. When this compound burns, it produces pure steam. The steam is used to open and close a series of valves. The valves are connected to the spring-loaded joints of the prosthesis by belts made of a special monofilament used in appliance handles and aircraft parts.
It’s truly a wondrous development, promising to be the most human-like prosthetic arm ever created, weighing in at about half the weight of a real arm, mimicking 21 of the natural arm’s 26 motions and with the goal of being so thoroughly integrated into the nerve structure of the wearer that it can be controlled by thought alone.
The coolest part? It’s totally steampunk, in the truest sense! We need to get the folks over at The Steampunk Workshop working on an aesthetic design for this device pronto, pronto!
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tags: artificial limbs, bionic arm, bionics, darpa, prosthetic arm, prosthetics, steampunk, steampunk workshop, vanderbilt, vanderbilt arm, vanderbilt university
