Robotics experts and athletes prep for world’s first ‘Cyborg Olympics’

Photo credit: Alessandro Della Bella of ETH Zurich.

It’s Thursday afternoon and you’re trying to catch the matinee at the movie theater. You prefer to watch movies alone, you convince yourself.

You walk up to the window, “One ticket please.” From the corner of your eye you notice someone join the queue behind you. Your heart begins to beat faster, your chest feels heavy.

The teller slides the ticket through the tiny window and you grab it with your good hand. Another person joins the line. Holding the ticket, you struggle to pull your wallet out of your back pocket.

Next comes the receipt, but you haven’t paid yet. Your hand clunkily opens and closes as you try to pry the flaps of your wallet apart. Time feels like you’re skipping pages in a flipbook.

Another person joins the line.

People are talking, bobbing their heads to see what the holdup is. Sweat beads down your forehead. Your focus tunnels in until all you can hear is an incessant chatter and the mechanical sound of your prosthetic arm like the roar of Niagara Falls.

When Professor Robert Riener heard a real story like this from one of his patients he was disheartened. What good are prostheses if they cause the wearer undue stress which can lead to people not using them.

He has access to some of the brightest people in the world at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) and felt like he could do more. After all, his colleagues make cars that can drive on walls and drones that build bridges which people can walk over.

Four years ago Professor Riener teamed up with ETH Zurich and the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research Robotics to create Cybathlon. These “cyborg” Olympics aim to to bring academics, technology, and the public together to show the world the struggles people with disabilities go through daily and how technology can help overcome some of these challenges.

Unlike the Paralympics, individuals may use motor assisted devices. The events are not as athletic as at the Olympics or the Paralympics, focusing instead on everyday tasks like climbing stairs or opening doors. Participants will compete in six events in everything from brain controlled avatars to a powered exoskeleton race.

1. Meltin

2. Intelligent Mechatronics Lab

3. Xiborg

See you in Zurich