climbing
Vehicles
Hydraulic Excavator Used to Climb Column Leaves Us Completely Baffled
11:00AM Jesus Diaz | Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you: This is a hydraulic excavator–a machine that weights 21,570 to 34,700 kilos–climbing a column using its front arm. Seriously, after hours searching in the web, I really don’t know where this came from or when it was taken. I don’t even know if it’s real, and I’m sure that a hundred people will probably exclaim: “Photoshop!” But it looks real and I want to know what is going on here and how is this possible at all. [Dark Roasted Blend] More »
Gadgets
Treadwall Balances Your Love of Rock Climbing With Your Acrophobia
11:06PM John Mahoney | Yes there are pool treadmills, desk treadmills, and water-resistance treadmills for dogs, but the Treadwall throws the horizontal nature of previous treadmill innovations out the window. For 10-grand, you can climb yourself to death in your own living room without getting higher than 10 feet or so, making the inevitable fall when you fail to keep up with the scrolling handholds all the more manageable. But let’s see how some drunken Jackass wannabees fare in the following video. AU: Wow. I was climbing something very similar to this at the local rock-climbing centre when I was in Cadets back in 1996. Unlike the US to be so out of date… More »
Gadgets
Wizard Rapid Descender Backpack Beats Taking the Stairs
2:30AM Gizmodo US Edition | If everyone living or working in precariously elevated positions could shoot Spidey-silk from their wrists in case of an unexpected fall, there would be no need for the Wizard rapid-descender concept from UK design shop HJC. But a sleek Dyson-esque backpack housing up to 250 meters of woven liquid polyester that can hold you and two tons worth of distressed damsels is a fair second option. If this thing comes to market, I think I’ve found my new treehouse-egress solution. [Yanko Design] More »
Robots
Waalbot Wall Climbing Robot Could Put Spiderman to Shame
8:40AM Adrian Covert | Though news of the Waalbot actually surfaced last fall, EngineeringTV has a good footage of the gecko-like robot in action. The Waalbot has two legs with three micro-suction adhesive pods each, letting one pod stay attached to the wall while the other two rotate forward. It is also an autonomous bot with an RF transmitter on it’s back, allowing for wireless control. This is cool and all, but is it too much to ask for some giant-sized pods for my own usage? Check out the video below. [Carnegie-Mellon via EngineeringTV] More »
Gadgets
Mobius Climbers Are Totally Awesome, Dangerous Playground Equipment
3:15AM Adam Frucci | These Mobius Climbers are super-sweet playground equipment inspired by Mobius strips, bending and curving all over the place with grips and bars for climbing. It’s the type of thing I would have killed to play on as a kid but would be forbidden to by my reasonable parents, who would see these things for what they are: high-concept kid manglers, inviting slippery-fingered first graders to take a head-first spill into a piece of sheet metal with grips protruding from its concave surface. Awesome. [Product Page via Neatorama and BornRich] More »
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Towering Luckey Climbers Playgrounds Make Me Wish I Was a Kid Again
2:30AM Adam Frucci | Luckey and Luckey make some of the sweetest “playgrounds” I’ve ever seen, multi-story contraptions with tons of netting and platforms that jut out, allowing the tykes to climb up and around all over the place. They look like some fancy architecture or a sculpture as much as they look like objects for kids to climb on, which is probably why so many of them are built in children’s museums. They should make some adult-sized versions; I’m not too old to enjoy a good climb. galleryPost('climbers', 8, 'Luckey Climbers'); [Product Page via NotCot] More »
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