Suction is incredibly powerful and can be put to use in several different ways. [Jem Stansfield] built a set of vacuum gloves for a BBC TV series to show how powerful suction really is. He climbed up the side of a 100 foot building, yet had to rely on his safety line near the top. The video of his daring ascension after the jump.
[via DVICE]
what does he have in the backpack? is it two battery powered vacuum cleaners, or something specially made?
If you were clever you could have just one vacuum cleaner, but you’d need some active control system to make sure the pressure in one suction cup doesn’t go down if the other suction cup is removed from the wall.
that sucks.
They were mains powered. If you look closely you can see the extension lead dangling from his back.
For those in the UK (it might also work outside too): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8166923.stm has much better video.
This same machine was developed by a friend of mine a few years ago. He’s a great industrial designer. Please check out his site:
nice, to bad all building aren’t flat.
I’LL TAKE 2 PLEASE!
I don’t understand how they come up with the names for these things… “vacuum gloves” hardly fits as a description for that device.
Spiderbloke, spiderbloke, does whatever a spiderbloke does.
Hopefully M$ doesn’t start to build such things…
Yea a BSOD would bring a new meaning to crash! Lol
“The first M$ product that doesn’t suck….will be a vacuum cleaner.” Classic.
Yeah… all I can say is “F THAT!” lol
Of course he has his safety rope for this setup, but in any practical application you would need more than two suction devices, since one is often removed from the surface and it’s stupid to rely 100% on the other one no matter how well tested it is. (even if it were perfectly reliable, what if the part of the building you stick it to falls off?)
I would also suggest that it is not too difficult, with a little more engineering, to make it stick to not-perfectly flat surfaces. Perhaps by using an array of smaller cups (which can still be rigidly attached to each other) with the contact edge made of a wide seal of something more ‘gooey.’
This is why the elevator was invented. ;)
Nah, elevators were invented because most fat f*cks can’t make it up more than 1 flight of stairs.
OR possibly for transferring heavy goods to higher floors.
A volume tank and check valves are the only “active” control system needed to get by with one vacuum pump. One problem with suction is the higher you go in elevation the less work it can do, because the atmospheric pressure is what’s doing the work. As I recall at sea level you have around 12 psi to work with.
Video from BBC TV “Bang goes the theory”
i think this is a great invention and i can see it being used commercially in another field, another commercial application.. let know CE
Hi,
If you liked these, please check out the next build, a hybrid rocket powered by toffee.
Cheers
Producer Nick
Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks each day, every day from around the web as well as hacking related news.
A little bit better than Adam Savage.