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Mercedes F1 Team Builds 14-Year-Old Fan A Bionic Hand
(Unfortunately, it slaps him every time he says the word "Ferrari.")
Matthew James of Great Britain spent the first 14 years of his life without a left hand, but he’ll be able to spend the rest of his life as a fully dextrous cyborg, thanks to the Mercedes Formula One team. Man, here we thought Ferrari was the car maker trying to integrate man and machine.
Not long ago, James wrote a letter to Mercedes GP Petronas boss Ross Brawn, asking the team to pay for an artificial hand; in exchange, James offered to have the Mercedes logo plastered on his new robot limb. The surprising part, though, is that Mercedes was moved enough by the letter to actually do it, raising the money to buy James a $57,000 customized Touch Bionics i-LIMB Pulse—the Mercedes-Benz of artificial limbs.
James’s new hand is covered in translucent plastic that allows him to see the mechanical pieces working within, for that full Terminator effect guaranteed to turn all the ladies on. A pair of electrodes inside the hand’s silicone socket connect to the muscles of James’s arm and route his muscular inputs to the hand, which then executes them just like a normal hand would. It can connect to a computer via Bluetooth, and gives James the ability to catch a ball, draw or write with a pen, tie his shoelaces, and outdrive Schumacher this season.
Matthew James of Great Britain spent the first 14 years of his life without a left hand, but he’ll be able to spend the rest of his life as a fully dextrous cyborg, thanks to the Mercedes Formula One team. Man, here we thought Ferrari was the car maker trying to integrate man and machine.
Not long ago, James wrote a letter to Mercedes GP Petronas boss Ross Brawn, asking the team to pay for an artificial hand; in exchange, James offered to have the Mercedes logo plastered on his new robot limb. The surprising part, though, is that Mercedes was moved enough by the letter to actually do it, raising the money to buy James a $57,000 customized Touch Bionics i-LIMB Pulse—the Mercedes-Benz of artificial limbs.
James’s new hand is covered in translucent plastic that allows him to see the mechanical pieces working within, for that full Terminator effect guaranteed to turn all the ladies on. A pair of electrodes inside the hand’s silicone socket connect to the muscles of James’s arm and route his muscular inputs to the hand, which then executes them just like a normal hand would. It can connect to a computer via Bluetooth, and gives James the ability to catch a ball, draw or write with a pen, tie his shoelaces, and outdrive Schumacher this season.