Inventor Demos Soft Pneumatic Exoskeleton, a Good Getaway Suit

We caught a quick glimpse of the Soft Pneumatic Exoskeleton before, but here inventor Che-Wei Wang demonstrates it on himself, explaining how the system gives added power to limbs at key moments. He can power it with a mini scuba tank or one of those CO2 cartridge for pellet guns, but the usage is limited by the capacity of gas you can carry. Ideal scenarios he says include hard landings—dudes involved in “parkour” street jumping could use it to avoid ripping up their kneecaps. Wang says future applications include a memory mode, where a famous athlete wears it to capture some signature manoeuvre that some punkass non-athlete can then copy, just by donning the same model exoskeleton and jacking the software. How’s that for Johnny Mnemonic meets The Matrix meets Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? [CWWang.com; ITP 2008]