For science! Hi, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson and this is "Rising Stars." Today, I'm
interviewing Easton LaChapelle. He's a robotics expert.
He's a 3D-printing expert. Easton, welcome. - Neil, pleasure to be here.
Excellent. I just got asked, what's your favorite sci-fi robot? - It's bad and kind
of wrong but the "Terminator" robots were so badass and so cool.
The guy who's making robots, his favorite
robot is Terminator. OK. Let the record show. Did you just wake up one day and
said I want to invent a robotic arm? - Strangely enough, yes, so I was
bored throughout high school and I was always looking for a project — what path
to actually learn what I want to learn and robotics was just fascinating to me
trying to replicate the human body and being 14 I didn't have a 3D printer
laying around and things like that. The first hand I made was made out of
tubing for the fingers. Legos as plastic supports. - Household
ingredients. - Yeah exactly, yeah just the normal stuff. - So can I try this?
This is the full robotic hand. This is completely 3D-printed and this is the
glove so this has sensors on it so you can slip that on and then hit that
switch and then we can try picking up some some objects.
- Whoa! - This has variable control so if you slowly move your fingers, you
can actually control where the position of the fingers. - So it's geared in that I
mean — - It's, yeah, it's proportional control.
So let's try the banana, OK. Maybe more fingers around it.
OK, very cool. Let's do the water bottle. OK now you just grab here
This is in there now. This thing, all in all, when all the motors are actuated
it's very strong and that's something that as these motors, the technology
grows that we almost start surpassing the human strength and so say if you
want to pick up this ping-pong ball you can actually go you can make these
fingers go to kind of a point so let's try that.
Oh, I opened up too wide.
Wait, let me try something else.
Can you put the ping-pong ball back there? So here, I want to try something.
- That worked - Hey, high five on that!
I'm going to high five myself!
That is one of the few opportunities that you can shake hands with yourself.
No, I know, fist bump!
Does your head itch?
I love it.
- What were you doing when you were 20?
- I am 20. - Oh you are 20.
Well, what motivated you?
It's computer technology. It's engineering. It's human physiology
Exactly, the human anatomy, it's so hard to replicate and even
if you look at how your wrist rotates, you have two bones that
crisscross. Now trying to replicate that mechanically is a really big challenge
- On that point, it's one thing to replicate the human hand
recognizing the complexities to it, but if you were starting from scratch
would a hand be something you would invent as the ideal tool?
No and that's
the thing is that there is actually more functional kind of
grippers out there than the human hand and so no it's not the most optimal kind
of tool out there but then I got to the point where there's kind of a line
between functionality and then the psychological aspect of
having something that is human-like and that's actually what the current
prosthetics are — it's that you don't have a single prosthetic for every task and
there is no one universal prosthetic and that is a big goal of this project is to
is to make something that is universal something that's accurate that you can
pick up an egg and and not break it. Give them a tool that they can
use but is actually cheap and functional. That's one of the
biggest problems with the current prosthetics is that you pay for the
functionality and that price tag is upwards of $80,000 and
something amazing is this is completely 3D-printed and we made this
open source, which means that you can go on our website, actually download the
files, hit print on your 3D printer and it's in front of you. So that's a
really cool business model — it's a really cool way to get technology to the people
who need it and it's something that it comes back to the internet in today's
world is that you know 5, 10 years ago the open-source licenses didn't exist. You could share files
- 10 years ago, you were 10. - That's also true.
Don't tell me, 'Well way back.' So from what you've read? - Yes and so we're seeing a
lot of amazing things happen and there's a couple reasons that we made
open-source. One was the goal of the company, of this technology was to
help people, was to give them tools that they can use to regain independence and
functionality back in their life. To do that, there's this whole overlying
factor called the FDA within these medical devices and that's actually one
of the main reasons that we made it open-source was to help some of the
liability between us as a company and the users and amputees and so by making
it open-source and having them actually create it, it helps spread the liability.
Yeah, it's a way for us as a small company, as a start-up to
actually in a way compete with these large prosthetic companies which
conventionally you'd need millions of dollars, a credible infrastructure.
- I was going to ask what was your competitive edge and this is
what you're describing - Right exactly, it's that 3D-printing is starting to
it's exponentially growing and that's something in my life I've been
able to experience. 3D-printing was patented back in the '80s
but back in the early 2000s, that patent expired and that's where a lot of these
consumer 3D-printing companies were able to legally operate and create this.
When I see this, it's still mechanical but there's things we do as
humans that are not mechanical. There's vision. There's smell. There's
taste. Is there a direction that this can go where more and more of who we are
as a bio form can be replaced? Can I plug something in and I'll be the best
taster in the world?
So we're getting to that point. There's a couple of
things that have to happen and that's the other half of this is
that I can control it but I want to feel exactly what this is feeling. I want to
be able to feel the texture, the temperature, how hard I'm
actually grasping something and we can do bits and pieces of that but
it's getting that information. - It's another sensory layer.
Right and we have the sensors. They're sensors developed but it's how do you
get that back into the brain effectively? We are right in the exponential curve
and so there's going to be massive sensor breakthroughs and again
it's the innovations that unlock other innovations. Processors that then allow
more sensor input and things like that. We're right at the line
where every branch of the world of chemistry, of engineering are starting
to really grow and then starting to merge as well. - So right now we think of
this as replacing parts of the body that do not otherwise function in a normal
way but why not take it to the next step? - Right and that's starting to
happen, if you look at runners who use prosthetics that have
that big spring - Yeah blade — rather than try to
duplicate the human foot which is like, 'Why?'
Exactly, there's better ways. And new materials. Everything like that
and so that's what is really coming back so we are starting to cross that line
beyond human functionality.
My sense is that you're not motivated by
this to become rich although that could result from it but the reason why I ask
is if you become a serious competitor to these much larger prosthetic companies
they might just buy you and then that I don't know that is a good
thing for innovation. The fat buyout check is real. You said you grew up in a
small house without a basement, you can buy a house with a basement. - I know, I know
All the things I could do! So that's a really good question
and so actually, I own two companies right now. One is Unlimited
Tomorrow, which is this robotic humanitarian prosthetic side
and that's something that the goal is not to get rich or anything
like that. It's to help people with this. The other company is industrial control
systems and there's a lot of money in that. I think that answers your question.
So what's going to happen the day your robot turns on you because it's not
just mechanical, you're gonna want to give it some artificial intelligence.
For prosthetics, we want the human to be kind of the main processor. We want them
to do the heavy lifting of that and so AI can assist with that but other
applications like we made this — the full arm modular, so all the joints can
be interchangeable so we can make a giant 20 degree freedom industrial arm
out of something like this and so we can go far beyond
the human side but then now also implement new systems like AI to
- But that means you're developing a super human. You don't fear that?
I think if it's done correctly and I think that's something that - You think?!
- I think. - You think?! That's not good enough. You're supposed to say I know if it's done correctly it won't
happen because there's a lot of people who fear it and maybe because
they don't understand it and you understand it. - I still see the
the good human side — that we can unlock really human potential with this
so we can help and solve these problems that
conventionally was just a myth or an idea and that's something
that's now reality. - How do I know you are not tomorrow's
super villain? - Well... - If you have to think about whether you're not going to be tomorrow's
super villain, then you're gonna be tomorrow's super villain. OK well
it's the fun, terrifying but definitely exciting future and because
folks like you are in this world you can make tomorrow happen...
Yep, yep. Here's for an "unlimited tomorrow."