How Dean Kamen Works

Stuff Works. Today. Sitting next to me, I have writer Jonathan Strickland. Hi there. We're talking about our podcast. So one of the things we wanted to give a try was to talk about some of the great innovators and technology, and to kick off our series, we we decided to talk about Dean Cayman. Yeah. Um, I don't know about about Chris, but the first time I became aware of Dean Cayman was back in two thousand one. It was

the spring of two thousand one. In fact, um, the way back machine after two thousand one, Quiet you alright? So um so two thousand one and the news, uh, news media and the news agencies kind of we're picking up on the story about this mysterious invention that was going to hit UH and and change the world, change the very way we do things in the world, and and there weren't really that many details. It had two

different UM code names, if you will. One of them was Ginger and the other was the even more descriptive it, which of course meant that all the different UH magazines and news the television shows, everyone was saying, what is it? Made writing headlines far too easy, so it's almost like a money peckon bit. Really really was talking about it. Yes, stop talking about it. Yes, it was exactly like that. UM so, I along with everyone else, was wondering what

the heck it was. And there were some there's some leaks heading up to the the announcement of it beforehand that suggested that it was some sort of scooter, some sort of vehicle, personal vehicle and what's that a hoverboard and not no unsfortunately not a hoverboard. UM but there were people who were just scouring the patent office to try and figure out what this could be. And that's that's kind of how the news leaked. But ABC's Good Morning America. UH actually debuted this and that's when we

were introduced to the segue. So, yeah, the Seguae that was that was Dean Cayman's baby. That's that's what most people probably are aware of. But he's worked on a lot of projects. The segways just really one of many. Um let's give you a little background and Mr Caman, Um he holds more than four hundred and forty US and foreign patents, so he's a busy, busy guy. It's pretty impressive. Um. He's an engineer, which means that he looks at the world as a series of problems and

tries to figure out how to solve them. Uh, yes, I was. I was reading about one problem where he uh he actually saw somebody having difficulty negotiating a wheelchair up up a series of stairs, and so that resulted in a system called the Independence. I bought four thousand mobility system which is marketed by Johnson and Johnson and

it it actually is very like the Segue. It's got a it balances, it's a wheelchair that balances on four smallish wheels and it sort of stands people in wheelchairs up. Is very cool. Yeah, they can actually the wheels can extend so that they're sort of balanced vertically, so the person can can be who would normally be at wheelchair height can actually elevate up to the height of an average human being, which is is that is pretty cool.

I mean they talk about how people and using these chairs can do things like like give a person a hug without the person having to bend over. I mean simple things like that that a lot of us take for granted. Um, you know, it's it's actually pretty amazing. Uh. And of course it can do things like it can negotiate stairs, it can go up curbs. It's it's you have to watch videos of this thing. It is really

really cool. And that does predate the segue at some of the technology that went into the eyebot later he adapted for the segue. UM. He also early on created an automatic injection device. It was actually something that that you would have surgically implanted that would uh allow you to have automatic injections and things like insulin um. I mean he's your point, Yeah, he's he's uh, he's quite remarkable in the sense that, yeah, he does look at the world and see he looks for problems that can

be solved. UM and he does it through technology. Yeah, a lot of the devices he's come up with two are are in the medical field. He's especially fond of medical projects. UM. But he's his experience doesn't end there. UM. He's not justin ventor. He also encourages UM technology technological education. Oh yeah, he's a huge proponent of that. UM. As a matter of fact, we have it. He's the founder of First, which is a technic technology competition for for kids.

We actually have an article on how First works. UM. And uh, you know so that that was one of the projects. So it's it's not just something that he's doing for his own personal glory and and uh for the money. It's you know, he's encouraging other people to get into it as well. Right, Yeah, actually lives better. I watched the video about him talking about First. First stands for for inspiration and recognition of science and technology,

and it's it's an interesting approach. His his perspective was that the solution that we're trying to create in order to to get kids better educated in science and technology, because you know, the United States used to be the leader in science and tech, you know, the world leader. Everyone looked to us for innovation, and now that's starting

to slip. There's a lot of innovation out of Europe, there's tons in Japan, and and science education in general in the United States doesn't seem to be faring all that well. So Cayman's approach was to create first, and he said, the way we're trying to solve the problem right now is we're throwing resources at it, like more, more teachers, more money. But his point of view was

that it wasn't a resource problem. It wasn't that it was a demand problem that children weren't demanding science education. They didn't and see it as important. Um for one thing, it was a it's a cultural uh problem. Our culture tends to value things like celebrity or athletic ability, and so without that cultural foundation to value things like science and technology and innovation, you can't expect children to really

embrace that sort of education. So even if you have the best education in the world, that the kid isn't engaged you, there's no benefit. So his approach is first, where it's this series of competitions where he gets kids excited. He tells them there's a way that you can compete. You can show how how smart you are, you can really look at a problem figure out the best way to solve it. Your approach is going to be totally different from everyone else's approach and it may change the world.

And taking that he's really expanded this this program quite a bit. It it grew exponentially year over year, like the original one I think of, like you know, um thirteen schools, but recently he's been filling up the Georgia Dome with the last time I looked at it was around thirteen thousand schools involved in this program. It's amazing and it's it's really really one of the reasons why I wanted to kind of focus on him today because um as as Chris pointed out, he's he's not just

an inventor. He's encouraging this kind of approach, in this kind of worldview among others, which you know, I mean, an inventor is great. We need them, We need those people to come up with these great ideas. But once they're gone, what do you do. He wants to encourage this so that we have a generation of inventors, which would be amazing. That would be amazing. Maybe we'd get our flying cars. You in the flying car I want

my flying car. Well, UM, you know, the the innovation that Mr Kaman has UH has created in the industry, and the fact that he has tried to inspire others to invent encouraged UH President Clinton to award Mr Cayman the National Medal of Technology in two thousand, So he

has been recognized for his efforts. UM. And you know, I know personally that will I'll be happier with a generation of adventage when the giant robots come to enslave us, right, We'll have somebody who knows how to build something that will guess out of that. It's actually kind of funny that you mentioned that, because you know that, UM. One of his more recent projects was something that robot. You're

getting ahead of me here, let's pull it up that UM. No, the the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA UH approached Mr Caman a couple of years ago and they had a task for him, and they said what they needed. UM. They said that that that that medical to technology had advanced at such a rate that when soldiers are in the field and they get injured, they there are a

lot more survivors than there used to be. I mean you read about these casualty rates in Iraq, for example, and they seem really really high, but there's an even higher number of people who are wounded rather than you know, sure killed, but we're able to save their lives. But the problem is that the technology for dealing with life after injury hasn't really kept up with everything else. So essentially we're talking about prosthetics here if you've lost an

arm um. And that's in fact what DARPA came to talk to Cayman about. They said, we need an artificial arm, a robotic arm that weighs the same as the average human arm um, that is the same length as the average human arm uh, and that has the ability to to do things like pick up a grape or a raisin and be able to tell the difference, to be able to pick up up grape without crushing it. Um, to be able to have the fine motor skills of

picking up something as small as a raisin um. And they said, we needed in two years and we'll give you eighteen million dollars to do it. And came in said, you guys are nuts, that's just how are you going to How am I supposed to build something that has the same amount of articulation as a human arm for eighteen million dollars in two years. But he visited some veterans, he talked to some people, and he he really kind of saw the value of the project, even though technologically

it looked impossible. And so that's where the Luke Arm project came out of. And you know where where that name comes from, right, I'm guessing it maybe a Star Wars reference. In fact, you are correct, sir, is a Star Wars reference. But you were talking about giant robots, And the reason why I wanted to go back to that was because the arm. If you've seen the videos of the arm, it resembles the arm of a certain

famous robotic creature Um who now governs California. No way, I'm mixing up actors and characters, but uh yeah, it's it looks like the Terminator arm um. And in fact, apparently in Cayman's uh over A DECA d e k A, which is Cayman's company, they have a full sized Terminator uh standing there with one of these arms attached from place of its normal arm. Yeah, And he's used several

different methods to try and fine tune the controls. Some of them are rely on on thoughts, some of them rely on a control system that's in the person's shoes. They use their toes essentially to control their arm. Um. Interesting. Yeah, he's still working on that the project though. There are videos out there on the web. I encourage all of you too to find these videos and watch them. They

are phenomenal. Um. And he's he's hope, he's hoping that he can get the program extended so that they can do the work that's necessary to finish the project, because two years is a very short time to go from from the initiation of a project to design to implementation right now. Yeah, yeah, I mean you've got to understand, like, like, when you think about that, how do you power something like that? Right? Like, how do you get battery small enough to move that? How do you get the motors

small enough? The human arm has twenty two points of articulation. His has eighteen, So that's not bad, it's it's pretty it's pretty close. Um but yeah, you when you figure that in, he's really had to bend his mind around some big problems to try and make that happen. And uh, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't even know the first place to start. Um. But right now, the way it's designed, you couldn't really do a mass production. It's the materials

are far too expensive. Um. Because you know he's he's working on a roof of concept to make sure that it can be done. Once you determine how it can be done, then you have to figure out, okay, well how can this be done economically where you know it makes sense to to continue the project. So that's probably their next big, big hurdle. It's kind of the same way with the segway. You know, I'm sure you remember.

It was supposed to revolutionize the world, you know, but the problem is that our infrastructure doesn't really support it and they're really expensive. Well there's that, but you know you're expensive. You'd think, well if it if if there were pathways for segways, then it wouldn't be as big a deal. But there how do you figure that out? I mean, the city, each city is going to have a different take on this. Are they gonna want people

zooming around on the sidewalks or on the street. You have to that people are going to be responsible and drive their segways and ways. That does not cause them to pitch off into the bushes, right like a certain world leader I refused to mention me right, okay, um or lots of other people. It just happens. He's the same as that one world leader has been one of the famous people who fell off the device that is exhossible to fall off of. It turns out not so Yeah,

with the right determination, you can do it. But um but yeah, I mean, and they were working on other projects like the centaur, the concept four wheels segue which you could actually stand up on the back wheels, very much like the Yeah, it wasn't that they were thinking about that from military applications too, aren't they. Yes, Yeah, yeah, I remember reading about that. Um yeah that was that

was kind of curious where that project is now? Yeah, it's I checked this morning as we were doing research for the podcast, and I did not see it on their website, so you know, on the back burner. Yeah, it was a concept. Um. But actually as of this morning, as we were doing research, I ran across a brand new project UH. On September, UH Dean Cayman was supposed to be working with Nokia, the cell phone manufacturer from Finland,

UH to announce a calling all innovators competition. According to this article I'm I saw on c net UH, it's basically a project to deliver water purification to UH to individual communities for for less than two thousand dollars each once they get into mass production UM to quote the scene an article UM, And essentially they're they're trying to get people to come up with inexpensive ways that this could be delivered UH to two people to improve their

quality of life. So you know yet another UM you know, health related project innovation, you know, something that that could simplify a very difficult problem to overcome. Yeah, I think this actually came out of I remember reading that he was looking into low cost generators UM energy generators for for UM community that otherwise don't have them, and they put off a lot of heat, and so he's thinking, how can I use this heat that's otherwise just going to waste, and that he used that to kind of

look into a water purification system. So UM, you know it's interesting that he looks at he it's when a project finished, it's not really finished because he says, what else can I do with this? Which is another good mark of an innovator. Um, but I got my information from the Coldbert rapport, so I you know, I only I only look at the the satirical sources of information. Apparently, Well, I guess that's a you know, that's a good portrait of Dean Caman right there. Definitely look into him a

little more. He's an interesting person. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, I recommend it because he he does really convey that sense of excitement and purpose far better than I ever couldn't. But don't go away yet, because when we come back, we're gonna tell you a little bit about an article that it makes

our co worker Josh Clark yell out, great Scott. This podcast is brought to you by Go to Meeting, the web based tool that lets you hold instant online meetings from your office, conference room, or home office with people anywhere in the world so you can do more and travel less, which means you can save money and make more money. Try Go to Meeting free, visit go to meeting dot com slash tech stuff. So Chris, yeah, have

you ever heard Josh yell great Scott? Well, I've heard him yell a great many things right right next to well that's true. Well he only he only really yells out Great Scott when he's reading a very specific article that would be how the DeLorean Works. It's because it tweaks his flux capacitor. I figured, since we're talking about innovators, we couldn't leave Doc Brown out of it, right, right? Do you think there's any way to get a segue up to eighty eight miles? And I sure hope not.

But if you want to know how to get a Dolorea enough to eight eight hour, you can read How the DeLorean Works. That's live right now on how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcasts at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you