Ilab

Thanks to Jack Peurach and Bruno Delahaye, fantastic lycee's dads, Anton Ritzu was able to organize a fieldtrip to Ekso Bionics with all our 9th graders.

 

And since Ekso Bionics offers the hope of greater mobility and independence to people who never thought they would walk or even stand again, we thought it will show our students a great use of technology. In addition, they were able to know more about engineering jobs.

 

Here an essay from Camille Vergely 3emeA

 

1. Introduction

During our field trip to Ekso Bionics, I was introduced to an interesting way of using technology that was very new to me. This type of technology was being put to people’s service, trying to have a positive impact and aid them in their daily lives. At Ekso, exoskeletons are created for a variety of different reasons. Out of the products that they carry, you can find full exoskeletons destined to help the handicapped in their rehabilitation that can be personalized by a therapist to fit the needs of the patient. There are also exoskeleton vests to help people with physically demanding jobs such as car assembling or some products that carry tools for constructions workers making their job much less strenuous. Through this learning experience, I have learned how technology can be used to improve everyday life and jobs.

 

2. Stations

 

During our visit of the Ekso factory in Richmond, CA, we learned the different steps of releasing a product in multiple stations where we were given a full explanation of each said step. First, I attended a talk about the design of the products. There, i got to see multiple of the products’ prototypes which start with a first sample made of clay and evolved into a 3D printed example of what the final result would look like. Next, my group went over to another station where we were introduced to the ekso ZeroG. The ZeroG is similar to an arm and is used to carry heavy tools and objects in the place of humans. I was also introduced, in the same station, to the ekso skeleton vests. The vests support your arms and make strenuous work much less painful by removing the weight of your arms and anything you carry. Many construction workers and car builders use them to avoid injury and increase productivity. After seeing the vests, we were taken on a tour of the part of the building devoted to the assembly and testing of the products before being packed away and shipped. I saw some people at the workstations putting together pieces of equipment and others testing the skeletons and retrieving data from the tests. Although it is a complicated process, Ekso has everything organized in an efficient and clear way, making it easy for people to understand how the company functions. Following that, I met Matt, a man who uses an exoskeleton to be able to walk after having been through a car crash paralyzing his waist down. Matt showed us how the skeleton works and told us about how it helps him in his daily life. It was very interesting and a nice experience to have a full demo and be able to speak with Matt who taught us many things concerning not only the exoskeleton, but also some words of wisdom that would come handy to us in our teenage years. In the final station, we had a talk about the evolution of the company, the marketing and had got to ask many questions about the company itself. I was impressed to discover that exoskeletons significantly increase the rehabilitation progress of a patient in little time.

 

In the end, this field trip was an eye opening experience to a new aspect of technology that I hadn’t completely discovered before. I learned that technology and robotics can be used to help people in their daily life or with their jobs among other things. One man working at Ekso, Doug, told us something that really made sense to me ; he told us that when you have a job to do, you can have a robot replace you and do the job for you, or you can have it help you do the job, and that’s what Ekso’s mission was. If you take the exoskeleton as an example, contrarily to a wheelchair that does the whole job of moving around for the patient, the exoskeleton helps in rehabilitation.

 

3. Another company

This idea or helping reminded me of another company I know of called Neurovision Medical Products, where my mom works. Their company creates nerve monitors for doctors to use during surgery. As the name says, the products are used during the surgery to detect nerves so that the doctor doesn’t accidentally damage one, which can have severe consequences on the patient, of which include paralysis. This makes technology an important part of the doctor’s job without actually replacing the doctor and instead, helping them do their job the best way possible.

 

4. What I have learned

This concept of technology helping humans is what I hope for the future. Many people are afraid of technology taking over our lives and picture a post apocalyptic scene similar to Terminator. For some time, I myself questioned how far technology would go and what the consequences would be but this idea that perhaps technology can be a simple help to us without replacing the need for our existence reassures me and I hope that this will be the result we achieve for our future. This is what I have learned from my field trip to Ekso Bionics which was a great experience and an interesting field to explore.