Exoskeleton Fulfills Needs of Soldiers, Halo Fanboys

There has been a flood of articles and information on exoskeletons in online news lately, and it seems to have come out of nowhere. Granted, most of us figured that somebody must be working on this stuff, but I was kind of surprised at so many things coming out at once. It's clear that most of the exoskeletons are not too advanced, but they've taken care of syncing the mechanical movements of a motorized body to its driver's movements, which is the hard part. EnvironmentalGraffiti has posted a list of the top 5 exoskeletons, but don't waste your time looking through it because there is a clear winner from all the models I have seen.

Image Via EnvironmentalGraffiti

Although the scientists in Japan taking a break from working on creepy artificial fuck-buddies made significant progress towards the Japanese people's goal of becoming completely robotic by 2040, the champion here is clearly Mr. Troy Hurtubise of North Bay, Canada. His suit, the Trojan, can supposedly resist light explosives, elephant gun rounds, and various forms of shrapnel. The suit boasts a number of kick-ass features, including

• Solar powered air-conditioning
• Laser pointing helmet
• Device for recording your final words
• Bear-mace gun
• Crotch watch

Keep reading after the video to learn more about Mr Hurtibise.



Yeah, that guy seems sane. Mr Hurtibise is no stranger to the media, having been the subject of the 1996 documentary The Grizzly Project which tracked his development of a suit to protect the wearer from grizzly attacks (this became the inspiration for the Trojan Project). He has developed a reputation for developing fantastical inventions and testing them on himself in dangerous ways. For instance, he developed a fire retardant paste which he demonstrated by wearing a mask made out of the substance and having a blowtorch aimed directly at his head for ten minutes.

Although the paste appears to work the way that he claims (see the video at DailyPlanet, under fight fire with fact) no one has really used it. Internet opinion is uncertain on firepaste (at least from what I have read) but not on his "Angel Light", a weird ray that he claimed allowed him to see through walls and interfere with radio signals. Although he failed to produce any real proof for this he claimed that the French government offered him money to complete the project, which he abandoned after discovering it had harmful effects on human tissue (like maybe it turns you into a batshit crazy canuck).

Troy certainly seems crazy, but I can't tell if he is crazy con man or crazy inventor. He doesn't seem to understand the science behind his inventions and claims that the ideas for some of them came to him in dreams. However, a fair number appear to work and he isn't shy about letting scientists put them under the microscope (except for the angel light).

Troy's passion for developing these inventions is obsessive and it has caused him considerable financial and marital trouble. He has gone bankrupt in the past and appears to be doing so again: After the Trojan project failed to attract any military customers, he put the prototype up on eBay but failed to get up to the price he wanted.

So, Mad Man or Con Man ?

[ Exoskeleton Article via Digg and EnvironmentalGraffiti ]