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Gas-Powered Shoes? 185

Posted by Roblimo from the outrunning-the-competition dept.
Glen Davis writes: "A Russian inventor has created motorized shoes! The shoes weigh 2 pounds apiece, and work by means of foot-long pistons which trigger a plate attached to the shoe's sole. Single strides are up to 13 feet long, and wearers can attain speeds of up to 25 mph! The shoes are gas-powered." (BBC article with pictures here, submitted by Ave.)
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Gas-Powered Shoes? More

Gas-Powered Shoes?

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  • So long as I won't be at risk of exploding or falling flat on my face into the asphalt while wearing them, I want a pair!

    I don't drive. Driving sucks. Traffic in the Bay area sucks. I live almost nine miles away from my company's campus and I would love a pair of these to trot along at a nice 25mph along the side of the San Tomas expressway.

    These would also come in handy when your boss is chasing you down the hall to hand you some extra work. With these suckers, it's just one big leap and you're half way across the building, out of his path!

    I wish there were photos of the shoes. God, I want a pair so bad!
    ---
    seumas.com

  • 1. What is the long-term effect of its use on your joints? After using these things a while I assume you wind up spending your later years in a wheelchair. 2. (At the risk of sounding like a ludite) do we really need gas powered shoes?
  • heck, I've gone 40mph on my bicycle several times. I don't want to think of what would have happened if I had fallen off, my chain had jammed, there was an unseen stick in the roadway, etc...

    But I really am concerned about how one STOPS in these boots, or how one controls the speed. And if a 'normal' person can get up to 25mph, can an olympic runner go faster than that in these boots?

    - Spryguy
  • well the pongo stick is why perdita had so many dalmatians.

    On a slightly less feasetious note, I do recall seeing a gas powered pogo stick.
  • This should be moderated up, 2 (funny!)

    - Spryguy
  • So, 40 km/h for a human. That's pretty good. So what happens if we make shoes for *other* non-bipedal animals?

    - The Kentucky Derby is overshadowed by the Yamaha Goodyear Derby 500, where gas-powered horseshoes propel specially trained jockeys to 100 km/h, and banked corners are mandated after one too many dull, wet thuds in turn 1.

    - Police dogs don't ride in the K-9 unit anymore, they run along side of it, and chase down criminals in the next borough. You think dogs chased cars before? Just think of a car theif seeing an angry German Shepard closing in on their stolen ride. Is that a brick in your pants, or are you surrendering peacefully?

    - Mice in space. No, we don't make shoes for them. Just rig up one of these shoes as a mouse trap, and spring the little bugger into orbit. Confused by happy birds of prey get to pluck their lunch right out of the air.

    No sense in limiting this to just shoes, either. Ski boots could give hot-doggers the air they've been looking for. Heck, ski-jump in Saskatchewan. Imagine figure skating with gasoline-assisted jumps... instant replay is required to figure out whether it was a octuple axel, or merely the standard septuple.

    I think this just goes to show that engineers should be given good jobs and a decent salary... to keep them out of trouble and coming up with goofy crap like this. :) (I should know - I'm one.)
  • Hey, my new fuckin lawn mower (CA), has a SEALED engine. I cannot take it apart and fix it myself. Only the certified Sears guys are allowed (by law) to service it, lest the enduser (me) misadjusts the engine or rigs it for better performance/worse emissions.

    They're serious about this stuff.

    Maybe I'll just buy a goat, because the engine has started to misbehave, it runs fast-slow-fast-slow for no reason, and to get Sears to look at it? $50 just to crack the case, more if there's work that needs to be done. Bottom line, if you need any serious work on your lawnmower, you're better off buying a new one. What happens to the old one? Landfill.

    If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
  • Now we just need another species to go to war with... In the absence of evil giant mutant bugs, I propose attacking Microsoft. They're the next best thing.

  • Think about the pathetic situation that would happen if one shoe ran out of gas before the other! I wouldn't want to be in that person's shoes.
  • I wonder how long your knees/ankles would last if these were used regularly? It can't be a smooth ride.
  • Woah.. starting to sound like a Borg drone.

    Add a laser scope to your HUD and
    a put on a mechanical hand-piece glove and you're all set!

    (If you're short on cash, use a cheap laser
    pointer, and hold on to a plier in your hand.)
  • Good idea! Ironically enough, the Ursus Mark VI failed because of mobility problems. I won't spoil the plot of the amazingly fine movie by telling any more.

    I hear he's working on Mark VII right now. I can hardly wait for Project Grizzly II.

  • One question though - how do you stop? The BBC article says the pistons are triggered by the foot hitting the ground...
    Typical journalist who doesn't bother getting all the facts. If the thing fired as soon as it was compressed, it would throw you back when you landed after a step. The obvious trick is to have the piston be triggered when you unload your heel and push with your toe. This isn't something you do until you're already pushing away for the next step. If the piston turns a 300-pound, 3-inch stroke of your toe into a 300-pound, 12-inch stroke of the entire sole plate, you're going to get some serious distance from it.

    If these guys have done their homework, the two boots are interlocked so that if one quits, the other shuts down too. I suppose it would be a shock to have a 12-foot stride suddenly followed by a 3-foot stride because of a fouled sparkplug.
    --
    Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.

  • That subject line was the first thing that crossed my mind upon reading this too. Collisions in a car at 25mph are going to result in little damage (so long as you are wearing your seltbelt), but stumble at that speed and I don't relish the idea of skidding on my face. Wearing the same protective gear as a rollerblader might work though.

    He should find that guy who created the bear suit, I would love to watch him hopping around a Kodiak.


    Andrew Borntreger
  • Approx 800 bike deaths / year in the US. Compare to 200 deaths / year due to lightning.

    Ryan
  • And they've gone wrong!!!
    Hmm.. I could do with a bit of cheese now.
    ^. .^
  • Fighting evil helps, too. ;)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Just from looking at the design of the shoes and the descriptions given, it looks as though the shoes are designed solely (ouch) for running. I can't see how it would be possible to adapt this design to use in more vertical jumps, such as would be suggested by real accessibility as the article mentioned.

    The other thing that noone discusses is how you are supposed to stop. Every time your foot applies a certain amount of pressure to the shoe, it fires the boosters. I can just see people trying the slalom to a halt.

  • Geez, given all these postings, what with the HGP and the super armor, you could say:

    We have the technology...

    Brought to you by CHuCK, who is still stuck somewhere in 1985

  • Amazingly, when I was 10, I saw a description of exactly this thing in a popular technical magazine (aimed at 10-year-olds, appropriately). The thing was invented by yet another 10-year-old. This was, like, 25 years ago...
    --
  • Bringing humanity one step closer to achieving its ideal: Inspector Gadget.

    "Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
  • What happens when someone runs into a wall or lamp post at 25MPH? Or worse, hits another pedestrian?

    Nothing good, but then bicyclists can go 25MPH too, and can also crash into walls and pedestrians.
  • Anyone ever seen that horrible 1993 movie, Super Mario Bros. [classicgaming.net]? Isn't it interesting that they seem to have basically the same boots [classicgaming.net] that they show in this article [bbc.co.uk]?

    Man... I never knew that movie would come back to haunt us in this way. I guess that if there's a screwy idea out there, there's always someone on the planet that's gonna try it. Time to sit back and wait for the Koopa Troopahs.

    LouZiffer

  • now I just need that laser surgery that improves eyesight beyond 20/20, use that growth hormone that used on the mice, bionic arms, and bionic hearing and I can beat the crap out of the 6 million dollar man.
  • are already working on a super-cooled potato powered version of these shoes. I expect to see the RIAA sue the makers since it will be easier to carry pirated CDs from one house to a friend's house across town. Besides, doesn't Ford have a patent on the piston? I may not be a lawyer, but I smell the liability lawsuits on these shoes four continents away.
  • ...and man, would those shoes launch a 10-year-old!
  • AC said:
    The bbc page claims that:

    The fastest sprinter at the Sydney Olympics will not surpass 37km/h (23 mph)

    It's going to be a boring 100m competition then. Even if the runners could achieve their maximum velocity (37km/h, or 10.28 m/s) in just two seconds (the first 10 meters) of acceleration, then the winning time would be somewhere close to 11 seconds.

    A more realistic estimate for the maximum speed [calculations]....

    This tells us the maximum speed will be somewhere around ... 34 mph.

    You are correct in pointing out, AC, that 23 MPH is not the typical top speed of 100m sprints. 23 MPH is actually the average velocity of 100m sprints. But top speeds aren't 34 MPH as you calculate. Top speeds are actually about 27 MPH.

    Here's a little tidbit on the subject [maa.org] from the Mathematical Accociation of America.

    World's Fastest Man

    The 1998 edition of The Guinness Book of World Records features an article about Donovan Bailey, billed as the fastest man alive.
    The article begins: "Canadian Donovan Bailey rocketed into the record books when he set a new world mark of 9.84 seconds for the 100-meter dash at the Atlanta Olympics." It briefly recounts Bailey's career and, toward the end, quotes Bailey: "No one has ever run as fast as I have, running 27 mph."

    When Roy D. North, a computer programmer and mathematical gadfly now based in Connecticut, came across that passage, something bothered him. When he calculated Bailey's speed from the given time and distance, he obtained 22.7 miles per hour.

    "What went wrong here?" North wondered. "Was Bailey misquoted? Was there a typo?"

    North had to find out how that apparent mismatch had come about, and his search turned up an article in the Aug. 5, 1996, Sports Illustrated. The account mentioned that Bailey's speed at the 60-meter mark of the race was 27.1 miles per hour.

    Mystery solved! One speed was the average over the entire race, and the other was the instantaneous velocity at a particular point in the race.

  • Not to be outdone, TSR announced their own 7 league boots. Questions as to their safety were ignored.

    In other news, the JCB GT [screvenmot...eedway.com], the 110mph turbocharged mechanical digger has won an award as the craziest invention not yet bought by Microsoft.

  • Is it just me, or do those look suspiciously like something seen in the Mario Brothers movie? I hope they don't hold a patent on this, things could get really ugly.

  • Bored? (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:09AM (#954315)
    This is another example of what happens when you get a bunch of bored engineers in a room.
  • Have you ever seen a collision where a car hit something head on? Each and every one has a bright red splat where the driver's head hit the windshield. Why don't we mandate helmets for drivers? Helmets would surely save lives in these types of collisions.

    Since cars are more dangerous (greater speed) and more deadly (greater number of deaths) they seem to be a natural target for helmet advocates. Yet these people go after bikes. Why? Surely they aren't concerned with safety or they would attack cars too. Hmmmm...

    Ryan
  • You do understand that the rise of gas-powered superheros requires the arrival of supervillians? Face your doom, hero - boy! :)

  • Boots of speed +10 !! (Score:3)

    by Benjamin Shniper ( 24107 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @04:26AM (#954318) Homepage
    Now all I need is some gloves of power and I'll rule the world!

    HAHAHAHAHA
  • It's not the landing I'm worried about, it's the sudden takeoff. Tennis players ruin their knees just taking the jolts from their own body weight running back an forth. I think they need to make a metal exo-skeleton if they intend people to use it more than intermittantly.

    Actually, I've thought about those for a long time. It's wierd that we don't have those "Aliens" robot lifters already. It wouldn't be hard to make the controls for them. Just put pressure sensors on the inside of a normal glove and shirt-arm, when you move your arm you pressure the sensors that control the motors in the exo-skeleton. More pressure, more speed and strength. We should've had it by now.

  • Actually they do have them, only they are used for remote access to things like radiocative materials.

    The glove tracks your hand, it's not exactly what you described, but if you increase the power on the remove part it is.

    I wouldn't want to support with my body the force one of these things can produce.

  • Fair point, but these guys are already taking the train. And as much as I hate the shitty train service we get here in London, it is more 'eco-friendly' than driving.

    I'm not suggesting these guys are gonna be 'walking' all the way to work. :)

  • Hmmm.. (Score:3)

    by deefer ( 82630 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:11AM (#954322) Homepage
    This could cheapen the Helium3 mining operation from the moon!!! You could leap 100m in a go! Better make sure they are properly fitted, though, or quite a few lunar miners could end up in the Sun...

    Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.

  • ...would they be gas powered, the rest of the world considers them petrol powered.

    Did you know you have foreign readers? ;-}

    jalalski across the pond.

  • Didn't I see this a few years ago in a theater? Think of the possibilities for the military and law enforcement--or uses agains the military or law enforcement. I could just see a bunch of drug dealers getting their hands^h^h^h^h^hfeet on these!
  • Even worse, what if the Throtle jammed? You could be running for miles with these things.

    Now i have images of people being forcably propelled up a busy shopping street while screaming for help.
  • So, uh, what's the point? Are there applications for this other than trendy executive toy? I guess I could see moving faster being a benefit in an emergency response type situation but on the same hand the kind of bounding that the boots provide would be really dangerous around a large bad thing (like a fire).

    Maybe if they changed the fuel the boots could be used as an alternative to a car, but since they use gas (and how!) there isn't as much appeal. Am I missing something?

  • Forget practicality! (Score:5)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:37AM (#954327)
    Well, gas powered equipment typically puts out a alot of heat, I suspect these aren't any different. So you have the heat production issue. On a hot day this could be a problem. So, using my previous overclocking experience, I added peltiers and an alternator to the shoes. I also strapped on a bunch of heatsinks and used heat pipes to extend the heatsinks up the side of my leg. It's now a boot instead of a shoe.

    So I was thinking, now that I have this alternator, how about I add a couple shoelights to them so people can see me at night? Not being one to be outdone, I used flourescent lights.. I'm environmentally friendly, afterall. Gotta add a ballast for that though. We could save on weight by running the wire up the side of the pants leg and back down the other, though I can't say I like the idea of 450v going by my precious jewels. But, in the name of science, I did it anyway. They work great too.

    So I have these peltier-cooled flourescent gas-powered walking boots. Doing all this required that I supercharge it to about 10psi and use a higher octane fuel. I got a great deal on peltiers though from Melcor, they're offering me volume discounts now. I painted them black 'cuz black looks cool. There's wires all around it, but that's the "in" thing now, so I'm not too worried. I added some fuses to the outside for easy replacement, as I've found the flourescent lights can overload the alternator and short when they first turn on. Should add a capacitor and a power inverter.

    You know, since I've got this nifty power source, I decided to make it wireless. Why not power up the shoes and make them walk to me in the morning? Forget the stupid dog! That'll require a bigger starter engine though 'cuz of all the electronics... Done.

    I also decided to add a computer heads-up display. We're using over 3000w of power right now, so I decided to go with a transmeta. Besides, heat production being what it is, a pentium would be too much. And I have to mount it on my chest now. I also added a belt-keyboard and mouse .. plus USB ports.

    Infrared would be good for tracking down lusers, so I've also integrated that into the HUD display. I don't know why people keep running away from me when I'm wearing my shoes (what's so bad about them?!) but now I can track them down. Hey, I'm getting a transmission on my wireless downlink....

    *cackle* We are the borg...

  • Am I the only one who finds it ironic that they are using a "foot-long piston" to power a "flat plate"? That what a shoe is already!
    --
  • Flubber!
  • It would take a tremendous amount of bouncing to generate something like what you suggest... but if you could there would be a major thing to learn from it - what is at the center of the earth?

    I don't mean is it carmel or truffel, but liquid or solid? Eventhough there was "Journey to the Center of Earth" that didn't seem to help much. What has helped are major earthquakes on one side of the earth that can be measured on the other side in specific places, measure the time delay (and note any lack of sites to detect the quake) and ponder if the center of the earth is absorbing quakes or not...
  • Yeah, a helmet, of course, yeah, right... Put a propeller on the helmet and run it with gasoline too.

    Then, maybe you could get 30 feet to the jump. Might only be able to carry about 10 minutes worth of gas, but what the heck!?

    Hey, maybe you could coordinate the propeller pitch to apply more upward pull on your neck and back in order to help counteract those harsh bounces as the shoes push off.

    Yeah, a helmet is just the accessory for these...


    -Jordan Henderson

  • It's not the landing I'm worried about, it's the sudden takeoff.
    You miss the point. The piston can push for several times the distance that a person's toes can. Even with the same forces (and same acceleration, F=ma), you can get a lot more energy (E=force*distance) and thus a lot more speed. The takeoff doesn't have to be sudden at all, it's just sustained a lot longer. If you're coming down again on what amounts to a collapsible stilt, so's the landing.
    --
    Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.
  • I don't care much about the actual topic you're mumbling about, but horrible arguments irritate me.

    Yes, car crashes result in a greater number of deaths, but that says nothing about the relative morality rates. Until you know how many deaths there are per car crash, taking into account the possibility for multiple passengers in cars, you cannot even begin to make an accurate statement about which is deadlier.

    Also, head-on collisions do not always result in the drivers head leaving a "bright red splat" on the windshield. If the driver is wearing a seatbelt and driving a car with airbags, they'll usually be bruised but intact. Motorcycles and bicycles lack the stability, mass, and enclosure of a car, and so head-on collisions usually result in the driver being flung over the handlebars, hence the need for a helmet.

    We don't mandate helmet laws for cars because cars already have mandated safety equipment: seat belts, airbags, impact tests, safety glass, et al. Motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards, and rollerblades don't have these safety measures, and so helments are necessary.

    Helmet advocates are obviously concerned with safety. Your fallacious logic can be equated with the statement "People fighting hunger aren't giving me food, and I'm hungry, so therefore they're not really interested in feeding people." I'm sure there's a fancy Latin name for this type of logical error, but the best English phrase for it is "bullshit." If you suspect alterior motives for their apparently altrustic desire to save lives, name them.

    If you don't want to wear a helment for aesthetic, political, or spiritual reasons, fine. Just don't attempt to justify it because something else people do is dangerous as well.
    1. You can leave moon tangentially;
    2. Moon has no atmosphere preventing you from reaching ~1.3 km/s step by step (though you would need to move you legs really fast, but not often, I suppose).
  • 13 feet stride? Um, my strides are about 4 feet in length. 13 feet stride is the kind of thing needed only by Dennis Rodman and such.
  • hehe. I can just see some poor sap take a big step and hit a tree.

    On the serious side I see other issues with the particality of these shoes. First off: why use gasoline? Surely there are other forms of energy that would be safer and cheaper. As long as you are going think creatively you might as well do it in every aspect. Also, who is going to want to fill up at a gas station when their shoes run out of gas? Who is going to want to smell like car exhaust just to walk or run? These shoes seem like they would be much better with certain improvements.
  • Nintendo made the Power Glove years ago.

    ...are you *sure* you want one?
  • I don't think he'll need many gallons, especially since he (hopefully) doesn't weigh as much as a full blown vehicle.
  • What concerns me is what the effect would be if a piston fired when your weight was not over the foot that was firing. It seems quite likely that your leg would be shot up with a great force, as the firing boot would be expecting to have the weight of your entire body over it. Damage to leg muscles and the hamstring tendon seems possible. Maybe there would be some sensor to determine the force being applied to the sole of the boot and adjust the boost accordingly?
  • Have you seen Exerlopers [exerlopers.com]?

    The original design of these things allowed for 30 foot strides(once you got going), and speeds that were considered too much of a liability for the company to sell. No gasoline, pistons, or even moving parts, just good old fasioned efficient engineering.

    Mythological Beast
  • What worries me is that they probably put a lot of extra pressure on joints, specially the knees, that they where not constructed for. Olympic sprinters train their muscles to take the added hits and jolts of running at 23mph.

    On the other hand, it says quite clearly that they're only supposed to be used for short periods of time (25 minutes was the gas limit) which hopfully will mean that people won't replace their bicycle with these shoes.

  • AFAICT you're supposed to run, not walk, with these things...
    --
  • Step #1: Stairs are too hard to climb all the time.
    Step #2: Build escalators and elevators to make life easier.
    Step #3: Getting too fat because I'm no longer climbing stairs.
    Step #4: Build stairmaster to exercise.
    Step #5: Walking is too tiring.
    Step #6: Build cars.
    Step #7: Getting too fat because I'm no longer walking.
    Step #8: Build treadmill to exercise.
    Step #9: Still getting fat because of my computer (I don't want to leave the house).
    Step #10: Start jogging every morning for a half hour.
    Step #11: Too lazy to jog for a half hour.
    Step #12: Build gas powered shoes to jog same distance, in a shorter period of time.
    Step #13: Still getting fat because of laziness.
    Step #14: Diet pills...

    See where this is going?
  • Go Go Gadget Legs!!!
  • This would clearly be fun. Can you imagine some petrol-head outfitting his shoes with little turbochargers and nitrous-oxide injection? As soon as you make it a sport, people will take it to extremes.
  • ...at least it'll allow for some new, creative excuses when you're late for work; ``Uh, sorry, boss -- my shoes ran out of gas again.''

    -pf

  • You're missing the obvious fact that bicycles are still on the ground (most of the time) and have steering mechanisms.

    ...or are you thinking that air-control (as seen in Unreal Tournament) is real?

    Refrag

  • The Picture (Score:3)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:50AM (#954349)
    Okay, so now we have the picture at the BBC to look at and, just as I imagined it would look, it's basically flat shoe-platforms with springs encased inside, and pistons along side your legs, strapped about your knee.

    The first thought that went through my mind when I saw this picture [bbc.co.uk] was "what a great way to have the lower part of your legs completely torn off from the rest of your body".
    ---
    seumas.com

  • Platform game hero(in)es all have superhuman jumping ability. This will only add to the immersion of new games' plots. (I'm writing a Contra clone called Against.)
  • but wasn't there some American tinkerer a few years back who developed a set of spring-powered "legs" you wore like a weird body-brace that let you run up to 30 m.p.h. and jump a six-foot standstill vertical? I forget where I saw it, but despite the ungainly pose, it looked like more fun than the Big Wheel. Now, gas-powered shoes you can keep, but if someone knows if any info on the spring-legs is (hopefully on the 'net), let me in on it.
  • Let me guess - you're one of those idiots on an YZF R-1 or a Hyabusa wearing no helment, no gloves, sneakers, t-shirt and shorts...I'd love to see one of those guys go for the big red smear.

    Funny thing is, most of these guys can't ride - check out the rear tire, usually about 2" of unscrubbed rubber on either side.

    Might as well be riding a Harley (fate worse then death)

    Nick

  • Well, you may very well be right. I'd have to try them on to be sure. But even with the same forces, as you say, an increase in energy is produced. This energy will have to be transferred to the rest of the body via the legs. However you look at it, it will be more strain on joints and muscles. If its a short sudden burst of speed, it will be a short but very sharp impulse, if its a long sustained accelleration, it will be a smaller strain in the joints but in a longer period of time. The net sum is of course not equal, the latter is much better than the first, but neither of them would probably be approved these days in any work environment. (Consider for example how long it would take before a work hazard controllant would shut down a plant where all the workers have to squat to do their work (no, I don't mean to take a sh*t :) )

    I know I'm probably stretching it a bit here (I just have to be right) but then again, people have gotten injuries from all kinds of activities you wouldn't think was harmful in any way.

  • I wonder how this is gonna affect the patent on my diesel powered pogo-stick.

  • mid-air turning? (Score:5)

    by TheTomcat ( 53158 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @05:53AM (#954363) Homepage
    I'm sure this is going to sound stupid until you think about it. Remember playing playform scroller games? Like Super Mario Bros. The play control in the 'Mario' games was decent -- you could do things like adjust your trajectory in the middle of a jump or fall, but remember all those other games where it was impossible to move while not on the ground? Where if you jump forward, the direction buttons do nothing until you're back on the ground?

    Without a way to adjust your destination, mid-flight, wouldn't these things be incredibly dangerous? This would be somewhat like running on ice, or losing the brakes on your car while driving.

    Sure it's a cool idea, but is it practical?
  • Professor Kunikov believes that, as well as being fun, the shoes could be used by rescue services to reach quickly areas inaccessible to vehicles with wheels.

    Hasn't he ever heard of the Pongo stick!!

  • Acme[1] engineering at its finest (Score:4)

    by EngrBohn ( 5364 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @03:18AM (#954372)
    Just don't go after any roadrunners with them.
    [1]ACME= A Company that Makes Everything

    Christopher A. Bohn
  • I'm forseeing nasty accidents when one shoe runs out of gas and the other one keep going ... maybe that's how the Tasmanian Devil (from Bugs Bunny cartoons) got his trademark whirlwind spin going?!? :-)

  • Energy is force times distance. As I mentioned before, if you can sustain a smaller force but over a much longer distance, you can impart more energy with less mechanical stress.

    I think you're confusing several concepts. Every step is a "short sudden burst" of energy, as you come down on a foot (arresting the downward velocity) and then spring off again on it (leaving with upward velocity). If the boots can make each step smoother, you can have less stress than walking normally. A burst of speed as in a sprint involves several steps; unless you have greater stress in one or more of them individually, you won't have greater stress overall.

    There don't seem to be any unusual postures or motions involved with using these boots, so I don't think the squatting analogy is relevant. When you push off with your shoe, the ground "pushes back". With the boots, there's an extensible mechanism that extends the push for a greater distance. Doesn't seem like a biggie.
    --
    Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.

  • Energy that has to travel up through your legs to set your body in motion.
    Once again, you're confusing energy and force. Energy is force times distance, and the only large movement during a boot-powered launch is in the boot pistons themselves. This is where the energy is being produced. The only thing that travels up the body is force. Force is also being transmitted through your body from your feet up to your scalp when you do no more than stand up. If you bounce up on your toes, you may be accelerating yourself at 2 or even 3 G's. I doubt that you would consider the forces to be excessive. Continue a 3 G push for a distance of a foot, and you'll fly an additional 2 feet into the air before you start to come down again. Same force, greater distance.
    This hardly sounds like a "equal force sustained over a longer distance" situation but rather as a short, strong impulse to send you off. He (the constructor) also says: "A person can move with significant jumps or strides" which means that it's not a case of normal forces but rather extraordinary forces that send you off the ground.

    If it was the normal forces of a normal step over a longer distance you would not be able to jump higher, just take longer steps

    If you're doing anything as energetic as skipping (let alone a trot or a run), you are spending some time flying through the air without either foot in contact with the ground. This is not a case of "extraordinary forces", it's quite normal.

    Now try to follow me here. If you accelerate upwards during a normal step (and you pretty much have to), you are pushing with a force greater than gravity. If you sustain this greater-than-gravity acceleration over a longer distance, you'll accelerate to a higher speed and achieve a greater altitude during the step. Double the distance, you'll go about double the height and 1.4 times the speed. Quadruple the distance, you get 4x the height and 2x the speed. This is all without increasing the forces involved (F=ma, E=Fd, v=sqrt(2E/m)).

    This is all first-semester physics. Haven't you studied it yet, or didn't you understand it well enough to apply it to problems that weren't on the tests?
    --
    Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.

  • What I'm wondering about is that if the pistons fire every time you land, how are you supposed to stop?!?
  • >I already have a chuckle at the 'execs' on the commuter trains in the morning who wear rollerblades, and use those motor scooter things.

    Wow, I wish we had that sort of thing here. I'd applaud them. A few months ago I actually saw two consecutive cars carrying more than one lone occupant (admittedly it was the weekend rather than a weekday, so family trips were more comman and commuting to work less so, but anyway, it's not something you see everyday here...)

    Where was I - yeah, living here, every moron and his dog takes a car to get to work and back each day (one moron per car), and each day we choke on the smog. Then those same morons (successfully) petition the council to ban skating in parts of the city, and sneer at and stigmitise public transport as the "looser cruiser" that only people too poor to own a car would use.

    Salute those guys on their blades. The execs here are a far lesser breed.
  • Slowly pushing against something (like with your legs) to get up would not be damaging because it's a smooth movement and doesn't jolt anything. Suddenly being shot off your feet by a large explosion in your shoes would certainly jolt something, and I sure wouldn't want to be in shoes like that.
    That's okay so far. What you really need to do is examine your assumptions and see if any of them are invalid, which would make the conclusion questionable. In other words, if you know that "If A and B, then C" is true but B turns out to be false, it's possible (but not proven) that C is false.
    You press your hand against your wrist slowly, and it doesn't hurt; you're just slowly applying pressure. Hit yourself on the wrist with your hand, and it may hurt, because you're rapidly applying pressure.
    Your peak pressure is probably higher, too. To analyze this requires some knowledge of momentum (momentum = force * time). If your hand presses against your wrist you have only the static force of your muscles applying pressure, but when your hand first builds up speed over some distance (and time) and then slams into your wrist it stops in a very short time, so the force must be large compared to what the muscles applied to get it moving. It's the same principle behind driving a nail with a hammer; you can't push a large nail directly with your hand, but your hand can impart momentum to the hammer over a large distance/time. That momentum can move the nail, but for a much shorter time (smaller time, larger force).

    Some things may be "common sense", but common sense is only valid for the areas where we have enough experience to have it trained to be correct. Outside those areas there's no substitute for checking the facts and doing the numbers. The other thing is, "Common sense ain't so common." -- Roy Rogers.

    I bet I'm wrong, but that's what I think.
    Not bad for fourteen. Take physics and calculus and chemistry when you get the chance, you'll find that a whole lot of things that used to be mysteries suddenly go together like pieces of a puzzle. There's a lot of stuff out there that needs to be looked at by people in a position of knowledge and with fresh viewpoints, and you may very well be someone to find an important insight that everyone else has missed. "If I have achieved so much, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Go climb up onto the shoulders of Newton and Laplace and Leibniz and Kelvin and Avogadro, and tell the world what you see.

    One more little thing while I'm pontificating. There are a lot of people out there who are pushing agendas, and they depend on the ignorance of the public (especially in science) to get people to believe them. Watch out for these people. The truth is their worst enemy.
    --
    Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.

  • We aren't standing still. We're improving the product

    A rather thick pun if I do say so myself...
  • you're also not a very nice person, you keep attacking me personally, quite unneccesarily.
    What I meant to attack is your claim to authority, not you personally. Studying the chemistry of plant enzymes for 10 years doesn't make one an authority on petroleum refining either. And I would hope that someone with the education you claim to have would be able to examine your assumptions a bit more closely. An example:
    Energy is only transmitted in an unstable system where the sum of forces is not zero. So, I am in fact right.
    "Unstable system" is not a term I have seen used in kinetics, but I can offer what I think is a counterexample. Consider a brick being pulled by a string. The string is pulled by a winch, which is attached to a pylon in the ground (which is perfectly flat). The brick is being pulled at constant speed toward the winch. The pulling force of the string is exactly equal to the friction of the brick against the ground, so the sum of the forces is zero and brick does not accelerate. However, the string is STILL transmitting energy to the brick, which energy is converted to heat by friction against the ground.

    Still think you're right? I might agree, once you are finished writing down all your assumptions. For instance, I agree that your gas-piston example would probably be too stressful for people to endure. I do not agree that the assumptions in your example were necessary for such a device, so the conclusion you drew was not valid.

    I admit that there could be a way that the shoes could be only mildly concussive.
    It's nice of you to do that after I offered a method (a separate combustion chamber and regulating valves) that could eliminate the concussion entirely. I agree that neither of us knows the details of what the inventor is actually doing, but you should have sufficient knowledge and imagination to see what is within the realm of physical possibility. Your assumptions are too narrow to yield valid conclusions, and that's what I'm trying to hammer you into admitting (the hammer being a useful device for applying brief, large forces to objects which cannot be moved with the static force of one's muscles alone ;-).
    --
    Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.
  • This is great! I already have a chuckle at the 'execs' on the commuter trains in the morning who wear rollerblades, and use those motor scooter things. Now I get to watch them bounding down the platform too! Yay!

    I'm thinking tripwire here...
  • Oh, from your other question: I was using P to be pressure, and v to be specific volume (volume / mass). In the thermo convention I learned, V would be the total volume (v * mass). Or maybe I have it reversed. When I go to a reference, I have no trouble picking it up from context.
    Now you're being more reasonable, even though you're not admitting that I also could be right. We just don't know enough.
    ...
    My first post, from which all this stems, merely points out that I thought that perhaps the shoes could be damaging to the legs if used for a long time (which I also pointed out was not intended).
    Heck, one can get repetitive-motion injuries and strains without any mechanical assistance whatsoever. That much I agree with 100%. However, I do not agree that injuries are a necessary or even likely consequence of using powered boots. That would depend entirely on the design and also the training of the users.

    Let's try an example of the possible here. I can leap a set of 4 stairs in a single step, unaided. This is a height of roughly 70 cm. If my leg bends to give 7.5 cm and my toes flex another 7.5 cm, that is a total stroke of 15 cm for the launch. That's an acceleration of nearly 5 G's. If I was using boots which were set to an acceleration of 4 G's (constant over the stroke), a 30 cm stroke would launch me upwards by an additional 1.2 meters. More to the point, the stresses imposed by the boots would be 20% less than the stresses from the single step I can already make.

    The combined height is 1.9 meters. That's a bit higher than my own height. Being able to take one step and leap onto something at the height of my own head... that sounds fun.
    --
    Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.

  • It seems to me that this is a great idea, but what if there is a mis-fire? I don't think I want to have something capable of lifting my weight go off at the wrong time, or with excessive force.
    It would be very nice to see a photo or diagram.
    --Mike--
  • Just picture it now, Win98 based piston boots.

    If it's Win98 you could just put the Ctrl, Alt and Delete keys on the sole of one shoe and re-"boot" every 26 feet.

    carlos

  • And the fact that this is foodwear would only be one of the reasons...

  • Dangerous? (Score:3)

    by BrianW ( 180468 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:15AM (#954438)
    What happens when someone runs into a wall or lamp post at 25MPH? Or worse, hits another pedestrian?

  • Um, I'm wondering... (Score:3)

    by FreeJack1 ( 203705 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:17AM (#954441)
    The one thing that comes to my mind when I read this; is there a tube that runs up into your arse and all you have to do is eat beans or corned beef and cabbage and you'll have a limitless supply of energy for the motor!

    "More beans, Mr. Taggart??"

  • This must look ridiculous... (Score:5)

    by Griff ( 17764 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:18AM (#954444)
    It sounds like something I'd like to try (but probably only the once :)

    One question though - how do you stop? The BBC article says the pistons are triggered by the foot hitting the ground, so presumably once you have started you have to wait until the things run out of fuel.

    (This brings up another interesting question: What happens if your left foot runs out of fuel before your right foot? This would probably make for some painful accidents).

  • Can I be a superhero now? (Score:3)

    by Paul Crowley ( 837 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:20AM (#954445) Homepage Journal
    Combine these shoes with the Ursus Mark VI [www.nfb.ca] armoured suit, arrive in your personal helicopter [engineeringsystem.co.jp]... from Slashdot, I can get the tech I need to become a superhero! Now all I need are some nifty superhero-style weapons!
    --
  • I'd love to see that some sport competition! How about, say, motorized soccer?
  • I'm wondering how long it will take for this idea to be incorporated into that DARPA powered armor project. These are definitely better than the kangaroo suit for increasing infantry movement.
  • The fastest sprinter at the Sydney Olympics will not surpass 37km/h (23 mph)

    The world record time for the 100m is about 10sec, which works out to 36km/h, but this is an average speed from a standing start. I don't know how long it takes to reach maximum speed, but when the runner crosses the finish line, he's moving a helluva lot faster than 37km/h. ISTR the fastest human land speed being >=64km/h.

  • Why use petrol powered shoes? Take a look at this page to see something that probably won't get you to 25mph, but will certainly let you jump a fair bit. You won't run out of petrol either ;)

    http://www.kangoo-worldsite.com/home.htm

    On TV once, I saw some *immense* boots somebody made - they were based on a "dead big achilles tendon" princple. Lots of springs, lots and lots of jumping. I can't find any links about that mind.

    Pterol might be cool, but I reckon the Kangaroo boots are better ;)
  • >(San Jose), declares cars owned by the poorest
    >people who can LEAST afford to replace their
    >cars to be "gross polluters"

    So it's the *POOR* people who own those 12mpg Excursions and Surburbans and Land Rovers that out weigh/size my own car by a factor of at least three!!! Silly me; I thought it was rich yuppies buying those monsterocities.

    Funny thing... I happen to *LIKE* having clean, breathable air...

    I wouldn't mind at all having <20mpg vehicles off the road. Or at least get rid of the "gas guzzler" tax exemption for them, and make them submit to all the safety and efficency requirements of normal cars. And bump the threshold for a *car* to be considered a "gas guzzler" up to 20mpg as well.

    Come on people... we all knew beforehand that California has some of the toughest emissions laws around. Yet we choose to live here anyway. If you want to drive a beat up old junker that spews tons of smog every time you start it up, well, you knew beforehand that that's frowned upon in this state. (seems like there's a cultural exemption for old Volkswagons tho)

    john
    Resistance is NOT futile!!!

    Haiku:
    I am not a drone.
    Remove the collective if

  • These would also come in handy when your boss is chasing you down the hall to hand you some extra work. With these suckers, it's just one big leap and you're half way across the building, out of his path!

    I would think indoor use would probably be ill-advised. Unless you enjoy wearing accoustical tile headgear. Not to mention the problem caused by your throat hitting those thin metal cross braces at 25 mph. Ouch!

  • lack of details (Score:3)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:23AM (#954465) Journal
    It's a pity we don't have not only some pictures but also some ideas of the way it is supposed to work :
    • How much gas refills do these shoes require per... hmmm say... kilometer ?
    • If I understood properly, these shoes allow their wearer to just walk the same way but make his steps longer.
      • What if he wants to climb stairs down ?
      • Won't he just be thrown in the air ?
      • How is precision stepping handled ?
      (a typical French expression in this case is "Adorable mais si on danse?" - "Lovely, but what about dancing?")
    • Walking with one kg of shoe per feet can also not be as natural as the guy tries to describe it...
      Especially if you happen to be out of gas in a country that is known for its penuries...

    --
  • Ever tried using a gas-powered engine with no atmosphere? Just won't work.

  • Yep. (Score:3)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:26AM (#954468) Homepage Journal
    Professor Kunikov believes that,as well as being fun, the shoes could be used by rescue services to reach quickly areas inaccessible to vehicles with wheels.

    Yep. Same strategy as army ants use to cross rivers.

  • That's not possible. The escape velocity for the moon is in the kilometers/second range (duh). Earth is alittle over 11 km/s. Besides, Newton's laws would make it impossible - first, where would you get the fuel, and second, what would it push against? Assuming these are regular shoes and not "rocket shoes" you'd need to push someone at several hundred Gs within a second to spring them into orbit. Strictly for the sake of arguement, you start turning into gelly around 30G's internally, with 10 considered the maximum safe speed. You can go faster for short bursts (under a second), but not any longer. Anyway, that aside, as your speed increased, so would the apparent weight of your space suit. It'd likely squish you under those kind of force anyway..

  • I'm having a flashback... (Score:3)

    by fudboy ( 199618 ) on Thursday July 06, 2000 @02:27AM (#954470) Homepage Journal
    Yes, I'm having a flashback to the cold war. Aren't you guys afraid of what the Russian military could do with this technology?

    1. Bouncing Battallions of Bolshevics Batman!!!


    :)Fudboy

    I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...

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