Exoskeleton

Last week, the undergraduate group finished working on the exoskeleton!

Thousands of wires connect the electronics and pneumatics together. You have to know where to plug each wire in, or you'll blow up some Very Important Electrical Circuits. Yes, I actually managed to do this last month by accidentally short-circuiting the 5V and 12V rail, which is about the biggest disaster possible in electronics. The Raspberry Pi and two SMD-soldered chips were blown up, which I all managed to replace within one day.

We measured the muscle activity without exoskeleton, then with unpowered exoskeleton, and finally with powered exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is very heavy, so when wearing the exoskeleton we could easily see a significant increase in muscle activity. Unfortunately, it did not help much to turn the power on. The current control system is too simple and limited, lagging behind the user's desired actions. So this is where I jump in: I will use my research to create a much better exoskeleton control system!

The team's final presentation, last Thursday. They did an awesome job and it was well received. Now the team only has to write its final report, and then I am fully on my own in this project.

It's not only internship business during weekdays. Up to now, every Wednesday evening we have a meeting with the tramping club: presentations about past trips, making plans for next trips etc. The projectors generally show amazing pictures of previous tramps, and then topomaps and current weather charts, zooming in on interesting regions for a good walk and/or climb.

Now off to Hinewai Reserve. See ya on Sunday!