NEED A LIFT?

摘要

Power Ascender was not easy to use. The battery-powered, waistmounted climbjng assis- tant yanked people up a dangling rope at a blistering 10 feet per second-almost 7 mph fast enough to snap their limbs back.So Atlas a company run by four mechanical engineers outside Boston, set the maximum speed to a more reason- able 5 feet per second and added a variablespeed trigger like on a power drill. Now customers-such as US military personnel-simply clip the 25-pound device onto a climbing harness, push any non-braided rope through the top, and let it fly. Inside the gizmo, a network of grippers scurries upthe line and ensures that it threads cjeanly out the side: The Ascender's 10-kilowatt output can lift up to 350 pounds, which is no easy task. "Hav-ing that.much power that close to your crotch is a huge engineering challenge," says Atlas' Bryan Schmid, "arid frankly a bit risky.'' Sounds pretty ballsy.