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TalkBack In the back of Carlos Owens' southern Alaska yard, an 18-foot-tall steel robot is taking shape in the dim light of the winter afternoons. The 26-year-old Owens is an Anchorage-area steelworker by day.
mecha"--not a ro bot, exactly, but a gigantic exoskeleton that can transform its wearer's motions into eight-foot strides and the devastating sweep of a steel fi st. Sure, it sounds like a cartoon or sci-fi fantasy--but so were moon landin gs 50 years ago.
mecha project is well on its way to completi on, its horned red head and pincher hands towering above its creator und er a few inches of snow. He's hoping to finish it in time for a test spi n at the local drag racetrack next summer, demolishing a few cars to sho w off its capabilities.
"This is a concept that's been around for a long time," Owens said in a t elephone interview. "But I'm not going to wait for the other guy to come out and make it when I've got the capability to do it myself."
Homebrew Computer Club that ultimately gave birth to Apple Computer and Silicon Valley's micro computer industry. In Owens' case, the scale simply happens to be more m acro than micro. He's drawing from an imaginative well that has inspired big corporations and the US military, as well as innumerable video game developers and Hollywood directors over the years. A Japanese manga, or comic book, cal led "Tetsujin 28-go" was published in the late 1950s featuring the adven tures of a giant robot, and was ultimately animated and released in the United States as "Gigantor."
Robotech" or "Mobile Suit Gundam" later featured giant robots, oft en controlled by human pilots. "I'm not going to wait for the other guy to come out and make it when I'v e got the capability to do it myself." Robert Heinlein's 1959 novel "Starship Troopers, " and the 1997 film made from the book, featured soldiers with powerful exoskeletal armor that dramatically augmented their strength. Sigourney Weaver's character in "Aliens" fights wearing something a little like wh at Owens is trying to build, and powered armor made a prominent appearan ce in last year's "Matrix Revolutions." Efforts to replicate these tools in the real world have been less than su ccessful, however. The US Navy and General Electric collaborated Continued ...
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