City Climber rover: Spider-Man minus the drama

Sure, Spider-Man is great and all, but is all the emotional, moral and relational drama really worth it when you could just spend a few thousand on this here City Climber which does about the same thing? The robot, being developed by Jizhong Xiao and his team at the City College of New York, is targeted at New York City's mandate that requires building facades to be inspected every five years. Manual inspection usually involves suspended scaffolding and costs around $5000 a day, more than Jizhong hopes to sell his City Climber for outright. The bot clings to all sorts of surfaces using a vacuum motor to create the pressure it needs to hold on. Weighing in at 2.2 pounds, the device can carry a payload up to four times its own weight, so it shouldn't have much trouble towing along a camera or two for building inspections. By linking dual Climber modules with a hinged arm, the bot is capable of rounding 90 degree corners, or moving from a wall to the roof. Test runs should be happening this summer, spidey sense to follow next year.

[Thanks, William]

[Jared @ Jun 13th 2006 1:59PM]

I sure hope it has a parachute, for when the vacuum motor fails. Imagine a 2-10 lb object falling from the Empire State building. Ouch.

[Scabies @ Jun 13th 2006 2:08PM]

Battery life? Solar powered? Plasma weapons?

[John Doe @ Jun 13th 2006 2:09PM]

But will it carry ME???
Seriously though, if something is wrong, you still need to hire someone. And I dont know if NYC will approve of this. Anyways, why don't you just take a pair of binoculars and look at the building that way?
oh and of course...
I for one welcome our robot overlords

[cDub @ Jun 13th 2006 2:26PM]

I remember seeing a similar robot on the old TechTv show called invent this or something along those lines. A guy made a robot that used suction for traction to clean airplanes.

[Brian from Texas @ Jun 13th 2006 4:30PM]

I, for one, welcome our wall-clinging robot overlords.

[boynamedsue @ Jun 13th 2006 6:17PM]

Smart, so they pass a law about inspecting buildings so things don't fall off the buildings and kill people. and they respond but covering all of those buildings with small robots and only a vaccum to stand between them a pedestrians head.

[SteveK @ Jun 13th 2006 6:48PM]

That little Mega brushless motor is the same one I use to power my RC planes.

[KenM @ Jun 13th 2006 8:29PM]

You know, nothing stops them from adding a safety line so the robot doesn't end up splatting on the ground. The line could be attached to a reel with an inertia brake -- like a seat belt or the lines used by practice wall climbers -- mounted temporarily at the top of the building. Or it could be attached to a fixed point and the robot could wind the line in and out as needed.

Or they could give it a parachute....

[James Van Avery @ Sep 26th 2006 6:35PM]

I would like to use this robot to draw the paint lines on Boeing airplanes called "liverys". We presently have a contorl system that can direct the robot on the desired path.
The speed of the movement would be the deciding factor.
Please respond.