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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Alfredo B Alves <dghost@****.COM>
Subject: Enhanced Armor
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 15:33:52 -0500
Okay, I remember something from a while back about someone who put
together an exoskeleton which, IIRC, enhanced movement through the use of
levers ... someone wearing this device could easily kick up 45 mph and he
was hoping to develop this into a method for troops to carry/wear heavier
gear/armor. Does anybody know anything more about this? And anybody
want to speculate on SR applications of this?

D.Ghost
(aka Pixel, Tantrum, and RuPixel)
"Let he who is without SIN cast the first stone"

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Message no. 2
From: wafflemiester <evamarie@**********.NET>
Subject: Re: Enhanced Armor
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 13:40:45 -0500
> Enhanced Armor (Alfredo B Alves , Sat 15:33)
>
> Okay, I remember something from a while back about someone who put
> together an exoskeleton which, IIRC, enhanced movement through the use of
> levers ... someone wearing this device could easily kick up 45 mph and he
> was hoping to develop this into a method for troops to carry/wear heavier
> gear/armor. Does anybody know anything more about this? And anybody
> want to speculate on SR applications of this?

I saw an article on this in "Scientific American" about 3-4 years back
(not a full size articel, a "new news" kinda thing). It was developed
by a guy in (iirc) Palo Alto California (home of Stanford University, my
parents, and commuting silicon valley employees). It was called a
"Spring Walker"- it basically extended your legs and had a spring and
pulley system on your back that acted to allow you to bounce up and
down- the running was rather "bounding", and similar (physics wise) to
running on spring loaded stilts.
The inventor was planning on marketing it as an execise toy, along the
lines of rollerblades. 45mph sounds like a MUCH higher speed than
listed- 45kph would be more like it (45 mph is hard to do just from a
wind resitance / human max power perspective, and this was NOT
aerodynamic). I'd imagine it would be a COSTLY toy- good drywallers
stilts cost ~$300, and are much simpler.
The interesting thing was that, indead, the military WAS interested in
the potential for a powered version. Yamaha (japenese corp that makes
motorcycles and jet skis, among other things) also bought the rights to
develop it, and stated that they were going to work on powered versions
for the civilian market. THOSE might go 45mph- i'd imagine they'd be
aimed at the recreation / offroad / scooter segment of the market, not
as replacement for motorcycles (although, with a 45 MPH speed limit on
Lake Shore Drive, I'd LOVE one for commuting).
I'm not sure how helpful this would be as "powered armor"- I don't
think it would enhance movement indoors or in tight quarters, or even
allow full human range of motion (ex, crawling). I'm not sure what the
military's interestwas- outdoor scouting, I believe. I'd think thier
drone programs would be better for that, though.

-Mongoose
Message no. 3
From: Matthew Waddilove <matthew@*********.U-NET.COM>
Subject: Re: Enhanced Armor
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 23:39:21 +0100
-----Original Message-----
From: wafflemiester <evamarie@**********.NET>
To: SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET <SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET>
Date: 21 June 1998 19:08
Subject: Re: Enhanced Armor


>> Enhanced Armor (Alfredo B Alves , Sat 15:33)
>>
>> Okay, I remember something from a while back about someone who put
>> together an exoskeleton which, IIRC, enhanced movement through the use of
>> levers ... someone wearing this device could easily kick up 45 mph and he
>> was hoping to develop this into a method for troops to carry/wear heavier
>> gear/armor. Does anybody know anything more about this? And anybody
>> want to speculate on SR applications of this?
>
> I saw an article on this in "Scientific American" about 3-4 years
back
>(not a full size articel, a "new news" kinda thing). It was developed
>by a guy in (iirc) Palo Alto California (home of Stanford University, my
>parents, and commuting silicon valley employees). It was called a
>"Spring Walker"- it basically extended your legs and had a spring and
>pulley system on your back that acted to allow you to bounce up and
>down- the running was rather "bounding", and similar (physics wise) to
>running on spring loaded stilts.
> The inventor was planning on marketing it as an execise toy, along
the
>lines of rollerblades. 45mph sounds like a MUCH higher speed than
>listed- 45kph would be more like it (45 mph is hard to do just from a
>wind resitance / human max power perspective, and this was NOT
>aerodynamic). I'd imagine it would be a COSTLY toy- good drywallers
>stilts cost ~$300, and are much simpler.
> The interesting thing was that, indead, the military WAS interested
in
>the potential for a powered version. Yamaha (japenese corp that makes
>motorcycles and jet skis, among other things) also bought the rights to
>develop it, and stated that they were going to work on powered versions
>for the civilian market. THOSE might go 45mph- i'd imagine they'd be
>aimed at the recreation / offroad / scooter segment of the market, not
>as replacement for motorcycles (although, with a 45 MPH speed limit on
>Lake Shore Drive, I'd LOVE one for commuting).
> I'm not sure how helpful this would be as "powered armor"- I don't
>think it would enhance movement indoors or in tight quarters, or even
>allow full human range of motion (ex, crawling). I'm not sure what the
>military's interestwas- outdoor scouting, I believe. I'd think thier
>drone programs would be better for that, though.
>
>-Mongoose
>

yeah I saw that on Tommorows world (science news style program from those of
you not in the UK)
The Theory was that ~50%(ish maybe) of the energy that you use walking is in
vertical motion (lifting your leg, putting it down again etc) and so they
used levers to convert the up and down motion of walking into forward motion
and used springs to lift the "feet" of the thing off the ground. (of course
I could be completely wrong :) )

and also if I recall I didn't just extend your legs you ended up about 3-4
feet of the ground (again very hazy memory so I could be wrong)
Message no. 4
From: Koenig Boldizsar <kobold@********.INEXT.HU>
Subject: Enhanced Armor
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:02:22 +0200
D.Ghost wrote:
>>Okay, I remember something from a while back about someone who put
together an exoskeleton which, IIRC, enhanced movement through the use
of levers ... someone wearing this device could easily kick up 45 mph
and he was hoping to develop this into a method for troops to carry/wear
heavier gear/armor. Does anybody know anything more about this? And
anybody want to speculate on SR applications of this?<<

I have no knowledge of SR applications.
IIRC you can find something related in Newsweek (sometime after the
Desert Storm there have been articles about military gizmo development
projects and trends)
Check out Alien2. There is that nice *forklift* thing.

A bit OT: people seemingly miss utilising potential running gear
sources, like recreation (cyber roller blades, see Sparrow's Nest at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/5738/sh-index.html) or industry
(vocation specific cyberarms: jackhammer, power drill, chainsaw,
microelectronics kit, ...)
Does anyone use such *unusual* gear in their campaign?

KoBold

"OK, let's synchronize our watches! It's 11:48. For hose who have
digital displays: stick, stick, colon, little chair uside down,
snowman."
Message no. 5
From: Iridios <iridios@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Enhanced Armor
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 19:39:15 -0400
Koenig Boldizsar wrote:
Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:02:22 +0200

> Check out Alien2. There is that nice *forklift* thing.

That nice *forklift* thing is a military heavy loader, designed to allow a
single person to transport heavy ammunition to and from air/space craft.
Much better than using any 'bot, because a 'bot would require large, very
expensive gyros to keep it from falling and going Boom.

> A bit OT: people seemingly miss utilising potential running gear
> sources, like recreation (cyber roller blades, see Sparrow's Nest at
> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/5738/sh-index.html) or industry
> (vocation specific cyberarms: jackhammer, power drill, chainsaw,
> microelectronics kit, ...)
> Does anyone use such *unusual* gear in their campaign?

I actually made up an NPC that was a "psychotic ex-UCASN SeaBee (archaic
term for naval engineers)" He was a troll that was heavily augmented with
unique cyber and bio... He had a heavy powered cyber-exoskeleton that
allowed him massive lifting and slightly less massive strength. The exo had
a underwater arc welder built into the right arm (nasty weapon) and was
armored because he was supposed to be a combat engineer. For bio he had
gills and underwater eyes.

The exo was/is an ongoing project for new cyber. I calculated his strength
at something ungodly. He was able to IMO lift small to medium autos above
his head due to the bonuses from the exo.

<snip sig>


--"Any science, sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic."
--Arthur C. Clarke

Iridios
iridios@*********.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9489
http://members.theglobe.com/Iridios

-------Begin Geek Code Block------
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W++ N o-- K- w(---) O? M-- V? PS+@
PE Y+ !PGP>++ t++@ 5+ X++@ R++@ tv
b+ DI++ !D G e+@>++++ h--- r+++ y+++
-------End Geek Code Block--------
Message no. 6
From: wafflemiester <evamarie@**********.NET>
Subject: Re: Enhanced Armor
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 19:20:56 -0500
> Re: Enhanced Armor (Matthew Waddilove , Sun 17:39)

<Snip long "spring walker" article review>

> yeah I saw that on Tommorows world (science news style program from those of
> you not in the UK)
> The Theory was that ~50%(ish maybe) of the energy that you use walking is in
> vertical motion (lifting your leg, putting it down again etc) and so they
> used levers to convert the up and down motion of walking into forward motion
> and used springs to lift the "feet" of the thing off the ground. (of course
> I could be completely wrong :) )

No, that sounds about right. Up and down motion wasn't canceled, but
the energy was stored in a set of bungee cords whic the leg pulleys act
against,making the "takeoff" from the next step more "boingy". Your
mechanics sound correct, but reversed- the levers kept the thing
balanced, and the springs made it a bouncy runner. I could be wrong,
also.
In any case, the "50%" figure sounds about right- saving 50% of running
power would not make you THAT much faster- If you have twice as much
power, I THINK you can normally go ~1.4 times as fast.

>
> and also if I recall I didn't just extend your legs you ended up about 3-4
> feet of the ground (again very hazy memory so I could be wrong)

Well, that would be a natural result of extending your legs, right?
Yes, the (1) picture I saw was like across betwen stilts and a partial
exo-skelton. Your feet rested on a "pedal", and leg motion was
amplified by the "exoskeleton", and the strength needed to stand by the
springs. (at least, thats the description I recall). IIRC, standing
STILL was hard, and to get going, you had to bounce up and down a few
times, to build up a "rythem". True powered versions might help there.

-Mongoose

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