That is a sport mech from Furrion Exo-Bionics and i'm going to learn how to pilot it!
We have lift off!
Hey guys! I'm here at an undisclosed training test site with Jonathan Tibbett
the co-founder and chief test pilot of the Prosthesis Racing Mech.
These guys have been developing this mech for over a decade,
and are the only ones who have achieved a fully pilot controlled walking mech at
this massive scale.
In fact it might be the only mech this
size to have any kind of real functional legs.
As you know we've been working on our aliens power loader build and we've
actually been chatting with Furrion for the past year.
They've given us advice on our build and we thought what better way to learn more
about hydraulic mechs than a pilot a fully built one.
Ever since that conversation I've been sitting in anticipation to try their
one-of-a-kind neck piloting experience.
This is Prosthesis the anti-robot it is the world's first purpose-built sports mech
and it's our flagship prototype in our quest to create
a global mech racing league.
I'm going to learn how to pilot it.
Yes sir you're one of our pioneer mech pilot trainees.
You are the first person who is not a world level elite athlete to strap
in and take the full three-day crash course.
So no pressure?
No pressure. Alright!
So it's a little intimidating where do we start?
Okay we've actually broken down the
process of mech pilot training into seven easy lessons.
Alright so seven lessons then I can walk?
Aha,
Lesson one you gotta get in the mech.
This is where you learn how to climb onto the machine
properly, slither your way in and connect to the interface.
Lesson two push-ups.
I'm pretty good at those.
Yeah it's basically like being in the
gym except in the nine thousand pound mech suit.
Lesson number three,
standing up.
This is when you combine your front leg pushups
and your back leg push-ups to actually raise the whole machine.
This is when liftoff happens.
Lesson four, falling over.
That's inevitably what comes after learning how to stand up.
I can't flip it?
We have never flipped the machine.
We'll be making a point of keeping the pumps at a low enough power level that it
would be virtually impossible for you to flip the machine.
Lesson number five, we call tripoding.
That's when you learn to stand on
three legs and lift one leg.
Lesson number six is stepping.
It's a combination of tripoding and falling without actually falling over.
Then lesson number seven,
you tie it all together...
walking.
Where you start tying step after step.
Easy!
Yeah.
You are now the heart of the machine.
I feel like it.
The machine is completely motionless without the pilot inside.
Pilot closes the control loop of the whole machine.
Equally you can't move until the machine is powered on so you are
locked in there.
So your arms control the outside legs of the machine
and your legs control the inside legs of the machine.
Well now that you're in the mech.
You're ready for lesson two,
which is push-ups and in order to do a
front push-up you're going to just straighten your
knees and that will extend these front legs here and push
you over backwards.
Power it up!
Just the knees James, just the knees.
Good
Feel a little tippy.
All the way!
Full extension!
I'm not gonna fall over?
Nope.
Now nice and easy back down.
Now as you get more comfortable you can go a little quicker.
You've totally got that under your belt so now we're going to move you to doing
back leg push-ups.
Smooth!
That was fantastic! Smooth, stable, in control that was great.
Standing, lesson number three.
Is just a combination of front leg
push-ups and back leg push-ups.
We have liftoff!
The man is standing in the mech!
That was great!
Lets do that again!
That was great!
Standing like you were born to.
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The next step is falling over.
Now the way we induce falling over is
through a balancing exercise called chassis rolls.
So you'll stand up,
roll the machine forward.
I'm keeping my legs and arms straight.
Yeah,
But I'm moving my hips and shoulders?
Exactly.
Alright I am in the air!
That's it.
That's it!
I feel like an elephant.
Like that's how I train all the way up to balancing on two legs you just bring
your legs closer, closer, closer and closer,
and you start to make the machine more and more dynamic.
I did it!
You did it!
Nice!
It's totally different when you
flip the legs eh?
Yeah!
It's interesting,
fighting the instability.
Yeah.
Yeah you're doing better than most.
Here we go you're on to lesson five!
All in day one which is spectacular.
So you'll start by just standing up and then
shift your weight around using your new found skills
until you feel the weight unloading from this one and you'll feel it in the
exo-frame it'll start to feel like lighter and eventually you'll be able to
lift it up and then you'll be tripoding.
Alright the mech is yours James!
Thousand pounds.
So bend your,
you gotta bend your knee to lift that foot.
There you go.
Perfect!
What we've learned is that you have to pull the pilot out before they
wear out.
Let's like quit while we're ahead let
that knowledge sink in overnight and come back and continue tomorrow.
Awesome.
Alright so today we're moving on to lesson five James.
This is tripoding you
sort of started getting that way when you were
working on falling yesterday in lesson four.
You've been a pretty quick study so far.
So we're going to move you straight from
tripoding to dynamic tripoding.
Which is when you have two legs splayed
in one direction on one side and then the other direction on the other side so
you're in like this running man pose.
Find out which way the machine wants to
lean and then and lean into it and then try and lift the one
leg that's unweighted.
I might be getting ahead of myself.
I think so
Once you get that teeter-tottering effect the step is naturally comes out of it.
I'm supposed to be tripoding but i just started stepping.
We might need a bigger
space for you.
Do we have a bigger space?
We got the whole ranch!
Okay so you basically just blazed right
through lesson five.
Tripoding into dynamic tripoding and now
you're stepping.
Lesson six is supposed to be stepping.
Yeah.
It just felt natural.
I just wanted to keep going.
I mean you're basically in the middle of transitioning from step six to step
seven which is walking.
So rock and roll.
That was a fall?
That was a good old fall.
Nice!
Dude that was awesome!
You had a full four point float!
That's two legit steps.
So which left leg should I bring forwards?
I think you want to bring your outside outside leg forward.
You're looking a little imposing at the moment.
What did you say?
Nothing sir nothing!
That was freaking awesome.
I took some steps!
You didn't tell me to but
it just felt right and I just.
You just blasted right through tripoding
Took a step and now you're sort of on your way to
linking steps together like you've totally picked up on the fact that the
leg that's farthest behind you is the next one to go.
This is part of our quest to figure out what makes a mech pilot and i think
the Hacksmith makes an mech pilot.
Let's get walking.
Yeah man, you got another day and a half.
We'll have your gorilla stepping.
Ooou.
Alright James this is it.
This is the culmination of everything
that you have been training up to so far.
This is the holy grail.
This is step seven,
walking.
This is what you came here for.
Arm arm leg leg.
It's not so much you need instruction you just need practice like you're
moving from from sort of padawan trainee into like
mech athlete.
Yeah!
Oh!
Ah this isn't bad at all.
I get my balance back.
Woooo
Alright I think i'm gonna walk this back to Ontario.
Okay we'll see you there.
Maybe not.
I'll still need some practice I think.
You're still making progress!
Alright that was freaking awesome. This thing looks amazing on video
but actually in person it is just it's so massive
it's so powerful and when you're inside it's
it's ridiculous because you got the the inner exoskeleton that's translating
your movements into the machine's movements and you're
moving around an 8500 pound piece of this amazing engineering.
It's it's freaking phenomenal.
I'm curious to know
how does uh your how do your expectations for what you had coming
into this experience compared to what you have coming out of it,
and how does how do the skills that you thought would be helpful compared to the
skills that actually were helpful?
Alright.
Coming in I thought it was going to be difficult.
I was a little concerned about being
able to get a full walk in.
I managed to do it with only a
few few face plants.
So i'm pretty happy about that.
Having background as an engineer and being around
hydraulic excavators and forklifts and bobcats
definitely helped boost my confidence a little bit with operating such a
big piece of equipment.
Yeah.
Then I think the other big key for me was
I'm an ex-gymnast, rock climber, I work out quite a bit
and to be honest like it's it's not a walk in the park in there like
you actually are you gotta move your body to move the machine.
I think having having a bit of strength really helped being able to push through
some of those um awkward positions where you're like
really fighting the center of gravity of the mech as you're trying to get back
into a position where you can continue walking from.
There's nothing like it on earth man.
I'm so glad we got you out here to give it a give it a go.
I can i can basically walk now.
I still i still stumble a little bit but
I think a little more practice and i'll be uh off to the racing league.
Absolutely the Hacksmith team will be the first team in the league.
I mean you made better progress than pretty much anyone we've strapped into it.
Although you did have the accelerated program over four days so you had a bit of an advantage.
It's only gonna get better now that you're training more and more pilots.
Well exactly and we're actually launching a crowdfunding campaign in
August to let people join the alpha pilot
program and become one of the pioneers who shapes the sport
and learns what it's like to pilot a mech as one of our first
batch of pilots.
Awesome you guys heard it here first make sure you check out
the link in the description below to figure out how you can pilot this mech.
Oh I almost forgot.
What?
Your official mech pilot license!
No way!
That is the first ever
officially issued alpha class mech pilot's license.
James you are now a part of history.
That's freaking awesome.
So you are the only other person on the planet to have one of these James
Alright so this was probably one of my best experiences of my life which is
saying something I've done a lot of cool S&^%
If you guys want a chance to become a
mech pilot yourself and learn how to pilot this thing.
Make sure you check out that crowdfunding campaign.
There are links in the description below.
We're going to make this into a racing league.