Squid Labs' intelligent rope
posted August 1st 2005 8:00AM
California-based Squid Labs, an R&D company comprised largely of MIT Media Lab grads, has invented an intelligent rope with data sensors embedded in its fibers. The "active threads" contain metallic wires that can carry data and send it to a handheld receiver, so the rope can actually sense its own load and signal any weaknesses long before it frays and gives way. Inside the core of the rope are a small proportion of electrically conducting fibers that sense changes in resistance as the rope is pulled. Practical applications include analyzing the load in paragliders, climbing and lifting applications, rock climbing and other rope-based sports, as well as optimizing sails on yachts and mooring ships. Squid Labs is currently working on commercializing its smart, self-sensing rope.
Cool, but dangerous. Just don't say I didn't warn you when the rope becomes super-intelligent and makes us its human slaves.
Wow. I can't wait to play a real Donkey Kong Jr. I'll be on team monkey you can be on team crab.
they have a cool showing of this at cooper hewitt in NYC. its like a musical instrument. you pull on the ropes and it activates a midi tone and a waveform screen lights up. pretty neat. the show is about new technology textiles, very cool. even my girl liked it and shes not as big a geek as i am.
I don't think that the rock climbing application is valid. The only time you use the rope in rock climbing is when you fall, that's why it's called climbing and not "swinging on the end of a rope". Ropes are rated for a certain number of falls and then they are trashed.
I can accept that this seems to make sense where ropes are under gradually increasing stress since there will be time to warn of impending failure.
Worst. Gadget. Ever. Good job MIT.
This would be best used in climbing if it could analyze the degredation over time, and could determine a realistic limit on what type of fall it could theoretically hold given it's current state.
Climbing ropes are dynamic ropes - meaning they stretch like a bungie cord so that you don't snap your back when you fall. (The exception being ropes used only for toproping, which are usually static ropes). If a dynamic rope gets wet - it loses it's ability to rebound, and becomes much more easy to break. If a rope could tell you what it's got "left in it" that would be a great feature.
I doubt it will be commercially viable for rock climbers, however, because nobody really likes to have a 5% margin of error when their life is at stake. When a rope gets old, it gets replaced. If the old rope was capable of saying "No, no... I've got a few climbs left in me" then it would still be replaced - but probably lent to the climber's friends more often. :P
What they really need is a rope that can "tell-the-tale" when you come back...
Why don't they use this kind of tech. in fishing line to tell you when it is about to break? They could make an auto-reel that would sense tensio and adjust reeling speed... etc.
aren't there any concerns with this rope effectively being a lightning rod given the metallic wiring embedded?
lightning rod or just a nice conductor from the 2.4kV primary when you're doing tree work in an alley. i have enough problems with hitting the service lines as it is :)