What we are doing in our lab right now is I think for the first time truly the first steps towards building cybernetic systems cyborgs
You know, we've been reading about this in our science fiction for years and it's finally starting to get there
My entire life I never thought that I would be where I am now having had an amputation
I have an opportunity to engineer my own body and I had always dreamed about that
The implications of making a seamless connection between the body and the robot means that we be end disability
My name is Everett Lawson, I'm a research assistant at MIT in the Media Lab. I
Don't know that I would necessarily call myself an inventor
But I like to make things
and I like to make things that allow me to see and feel and experience things that I would have not otherwise been able to
I
was born with a congenital
Clubfoot and what it really came down to is that the bones were weaker?
So even just stepping off of a curb I could break my foot
I remember once I was running from a bear on a dirt road and I stepped on a rock and I broke my foot a
Few years ago my wife and I found out that we were going to have our son August and
I had reconstructive surgery to allow me to run around and chase my son
And pick him up after he was born
And after having that surgery I
didn't heal my leg was just absolutely deteriorating and
The surgeon said well, we think that an amputation is going to be the best outcome for you
And I was sitting in my office
Dumbstruck and a great mentor of mine
Happened to come to my office and saw me sitting there and
He literally grabbed me by the arm, and he said that's it
And he took me and he marched me downstairs across the lab down into hue hers lab
My name is Hieu her I'm a professor at MIT and I direct a research group called the biomechatronics group
We develop wearable robots robots that attach to the body mechanically and neroli
We met with Everett that day and
Determined that Everett would benefit from receiving the Ewing amputation this experimental surgery
which is a truly unique approach to
performing an amputation
In a traditional amputation and not only are they cutting through the bone but they're also cutting through all the muscles and tendons as well
in the Ewing procedure
They preserve as much of that musculature as they can and the relationship of those muscles via their tendons. I
Still have the musculature embedded into my limb, which means that I can have a direct
neuromuscular interface with bionic limbs and
That's how I started this relationship with the biomechatronics lab
My name is Matt Carney, I'm a PhD candidate here in the biomechatronics group and I have been building Bionic knees and ankles
Trying to push the limits of what's actually possible to get as close as possible or even better than biological performance
What's really interesting about everett is that because he's had this amputation that allows him to have this
Neural pathway that a traditional amputation doesn't necessarily have so that he can have direct control of the robot
How it works is that there are sensors that read the signals coming out of the muscles in my leg and
It translates them into
mechanical motion within the bionic limb
so when I fire a muscle that would say point your foot down it directly translates to a motion in the
Robotic vehicle, I think as well
A range of motion for the dorsal flushing feels really good. It does. Yeah, I
Remember the first time that I you know saw of Matt's robotic engine and he turned on the controls I
Wasn't seeing the mechanics of this robot attached to my body. I was seeing my body being
Continued all the way down to a foot that had a 1:1 relationship between the thought of motion and actual motion
It was truly profound
So you can put it on we'll try it out we'll turn it up a little bit I
Need a little bit more resistance
on heel strike
Well, yes Mord Anthony for heel strike. How does it feel? I just made it. That's way better quite a bit stiffer. Yeah
Working with Matt and the team in the position of being a subject it is a really interesting
situation for me
but I also am an engineer and an inventor and you know, I also work on developing my own systems and
Rather than trying to translate my thoughts into motion. I'm looking at how do I get sensory feedback back in?
So I received this experimental surgery which preserved a lot of the musculature of my leg as well as portions of the nervous system
And I began to realize that
There were specific
Spots on my leg that have an approximate sensation of the big toe the little toe the heel the middle of my foot
And it was at that point that I started
Prototyping building things in order to start exploring these sensations
Within the last 48 hours. I've been able to build an array of sensors. They go on to the bottom of my prosthetic
they'd send a signal back on to my residual limb a little bit of electricity across the surface of the skin to get the
sensation of touch
So I can reach down and I can touch
This one and I have the sensation of my little toe. Oh
Do you help Papa? Do you want to help me do science?
You want to tickle the bottom of Papa's robot foot pop off the bottom all the way on the bottom
I'll push that one. Oh, I feel then. Can you push other buttons?
You're touching my pinky toe and my big toe
And it actually really tickles
I
Hadn't thought some of this all the way through. Oh
That's no sir. That's live wires
August is born with bilateral clubbed feet the condition that I had but on both sides you
Know the science has changed a lot and they're able to do treatments to correct it
But sitting there as a father
You know looking at my son my motivation for building
Bionic limbs came from thinking about the world that I want him to grow up in
You know, I think it's 2019 and it's about time we got robots on people
one hope coming out of this lab is that the work we were doing allows us to push the
Capabilities of what the human body is even capable of doing so that at some point, you know
It's not just I feel so bad that you lost your limb. Here's some prosthesis. It's more like oh I lost my limb cool
Look what I can do now
I can upgrade that limb as I get older. I can change all of the functionality of it
I have so much more capability now that I have this new robotic extension of my body
The things that we're developing now the prototype that I'm wearing today is just the beginning
I
Don't think it's ever going to stop it's not about building something that does X and I can just move on from there
It's going to be a constant exploration
Throughout the course of my life
You