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but before that it's time for Click. | :00:00. | :00:40. | |
This is the world's first bionic games. | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
This is an arena in Munich and around 2,500 people are getting | :00:45. | :00:47. | |
ready to cheer on some of the most extraordinary athletes | :00:48. | :00:50. | |
This is an event for people with bionic arms, robotic legs, | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
motorised wheelchairs and brain controls, but it is not just | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
a challenge for the competitors, who are going to be called pilots | :00:58. | :01:00. | |
today, but also for the technologists who created these | :01:01. | :01:02. | |
They are awesome, this is going to be awesome and this | :01:03. | :01:10. | |
66 teams from all over the globe have been designing, | :01:11. | :01:15. | |
building and training for this very unique competition. | :01:16. | :01:19. | |
Disabled athletes, here known as pilots will be competing | :01:20. | :01:21. | |
The Cybathalon is the brainchild of this man, Robert Reiner, | :01:22. | :01:31. | |
a professor for sensory motor systems in Munich. | :01:32. | :01:38. | |
a professor for sensory motor systems at ETH Zurich. | :01:39. | :01:41. | |
It's an event for people with disabilities who are allowed | :01:42. | :01:43. | |
to use any kind of technology, technology that helps them to better | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
So we are focusing on challenges of daily life and by allowing | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
technology we can also include people with very severe | :01:53. | :01:54. | |
I'm most excited about this notion that scientists and technologists | :01:55. | :02:02. | |
spend the entire year inventing these crazy bionic limbs | :02:03. | :02:06. | |
and then everyone comes together to compete in this celebratory way. | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
It's fantastic, it's such an extraordinary expression | :02:12. | :02:13. | |
Each of the six disciplines will have qualifiers in the morning | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
before the grand finals in the afternoon. | :02:19. | :02:20. | |
How do you win? Simple. | :02:21. | :02:23. | |
Get round the course or through the obstacles | :02:24. | :02:27. | |
in the shortest time while incurring the lowest | :02:28. | :02:29. | |
Well, that's what it's all about but this is where | :02:30. | :02:36. | |
We're looking at challenges that are real day-to-day activities, | :02:37. | :02:41. | |
something like getting through a door in a wheelchair | :02:42. | :02:43. | |
As we move towards here we're seeing something that shows | :02:44. | :02:56. | |
The arm prosthesis race involves being able to open a bottle, | :02:57. | :03:00. | |
open a can, cut bread and as we head further in this direction, | :03:01. | :03:03. | |
there's different types of bumpy floor and when it comes | :03:04. | :03:06. | |
to the exoskeleton race, the leg prosthetic race and also | :03:07. | :03:08. | |
the motorised wheelchair race, there are various challenges | :03:09. | :03:11. | |
they have to cross over and in fact, the stairs are looking like one | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
of the real highlights to that wheelchair race. | :03:16. | :03:17. | |
That's something I'm looking forward to seeing, | :03:18. | :03:20. | |
they've got to be able to get up and down at the end of the course | :03:21. | :03:24. | |
Back to you, Spen, what do you have to show us? | :03:25. | :03:28. | |
Our first event of the day is the Powered Arm Prosthesis Race, | :03:29. | :03:31. | |
a series of tasks designed to really test those robotic digits, | :03:32. | :03:34. | |
and this is what goes into making a robotic arm. | :03:35. | :03:46. | |
This sensor can pick up my signal by pasting this sound | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
So this one is the flexor muscle and this one is the extended muscle | :03:51. | :03:57. | |
and the third one is the thumb muscle. | :03:58. | :04:08. | |
So the competitors are using just two signals to operate this thing. | :04:09. | :04:17. | |
The whole system can analyse the images, directly translate | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
Maybe we can win because of that point. | :04:21. | :04:41. | |
Yes, the Powered Arm Prosthesis Race is not just about power, | :04:42. | :04:44. | |
it is also about precision and reliability. | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
The teams need to come up with the very best ideas | :04:50. | :04:55. | |
to help their pilots grip, twist and balance their way along | :04:56. | :04:57. | |
The race is designed to test how well pilots can work | :04:58. | :05:07. | |
complete tasks that would typically be challenging for them. | :05:08. | :05:11. | |
Yes, this is the race where the mightiest tech | :05:12. | :05:14. | |
in the world can be foiled by the humble clothes peg. | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
What's the next challenge that you feel you could reasonably | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
What's amazing is the huge variety in designs for these prosthetic | :05:24. | :05:33. | |
hands, some have five fingers and some only have two but as long | :05:34. | :05:36. | |
as it does the job, you have the freedom to design these | :05:37. | :05:40. | |
The ultimate victor was a group of biomechanical engineering | :05:41. | :05:43. | |
Together with their pilot, Bob, himself an expert in prosthetics, | :05:44. | :05:48. | |
they went for a more established body-powered approach. | :05:49. | :05:50. | |
This means that physical movements like reaching forward | :05:51. | :05:52. | |
or lifting your shoulders are used to control the device. | :05:53. | :06:04. | |
While this gold medal idea might have won the day, | :06:05. | :06:07. | |
in the end just crossing the line was enough to send most | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
The training for Cybathalon certainly seems as intense as any | :06:12. | :06:18. | |
athletics event and how about this for focus? | :06:19. | :06:20. | |
These pilots have complete or severe loss of moter function | :06:21. | :06:23. | |
and are using a brain controlled interface to take part in a virtual | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
He pilots and navigates obstacles which seem easy to those with two | :06:27. | :06:59. | |
legs but are really tough for traditional prosthetics | :07:00. | :07:01. | |
and it was a contender from Iceland's Rio Knee | :07:02. | :07:04. | |
Now as amazing as all the events are today, the next one | :07:05. | :07:15. | |
you might think is particularly unusual, | :07:16. | :07:17. | |
because you are not going to see any mechanics or any robotics. | :07:18. | :07:20. | |
This is called FES, functional electric simulation, | :07:21. | :07:22. | |
and it's a bike race between two riders who are using their legs | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
The deal is, both riders are paralysed, they cannot | :07:27. | :07:46. | |
ordinarily move their legs and they are using electrical | :07:47. | :07:48. | |
signals to trigger the muscles in their legs. | :07:49. | :07:50. | |
I had a trampoline accident back in 2011. | :07:51. | :07:54. | |
And I became what is known as tetraplegic, I have issues | :07:55. | :07:57. | |
with moving all four limbs, my legs completely I cannot move. | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
My arms and hands, I have difficulty moving. | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
Technology for disabled people is quite expensive these days, | :08:06. | :08:12. | |
if more technology firms and universities collaborate | :08:13. | :08:14. | |
they can make the technology more available for disabled people. | :08:15. | :08:18. | |
To prepare for the Cybathalon I have been doing about one hour a day | :08:19. | :08:22. | |
I have the arm cycles as well and we are not allowed to use that, | :08:23. | :08:32. | |
so I had to do some testing to make sure that my legs are up to speed. | :08:33. | :08:39. | |
At the minimum, I'd like to be in the top three, although I think | :08:40. | :08:43. | |
I'm doing very well, I still do not know what is going | :08:44. | :08:46. | |
It's not like the Paralympics where you sort of have a base rate | :08:47. | :08:52. | |
already, it has happened before, everything is a bit in the unknown, | :08:53. | :08:57. | |
so until I get there, who knows what will happen. | :08:58. | :09:20. | |
Well, Jolie wanted third or and his wish came true. | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
He was second fastest of all the qualifiers | :09:25. | :09:26. | |
which placed him in the final showdown against Mark Moon | :09:27. | :09:29. | |
As the heat continued, you can see that timing | :09:30. | :09:37. | |
was everything, if the electrical pulses do not fire | :09:38. | :09:39. | |
at the right time, you can end up pedalling backwards. | :09:40. | :09:42. | |
Another thing that became clear, this is a physically exhausting | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
event and that's actually a good thing, as the creator of the bike | :09:47. | :09:49. | |
Normally, people with spinal injury, they have wasted muscles, | :09:50. | :09:58. | |
One guy here with more muscles than I have. | :09:59. | :10:04. | |
Now, there are two different techniques of FES that we have heard | :10:05. | :10:07. | |
of, one that you stick the electrodes | :10:08. | :10:09. | |
are actually implanting the electrodes in the legs. | :10:10. | :10:17. | |
We only use adhesive electrodes or shorts, | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
we already made shorts with electrodes on, you put them on, | :10:23. | :10:25. | |
but they implanted it, the Americans implanted it. | :10:26. | :10:27. | |
It's a little bit better for racing performance, | :10:28. | :10:29. | |
but most of them do not want it, it is very expensive, | :10:30. | :10:33. | |
if it gives trouble and they have in the past, you have to take it out | :10:34. | :10:38. | |
This can just be used by any person with a spinal injury almost. | :10:39. | :10:46. | |
And it was against an American with implants that Johnny found himself | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
in the grand final. And after a monumental | :10:51. | :10:51. | |
effort from both pilots, it was Mark Moon who out | :10:52. | :10:58. | |
rode Johnny to win. You looked seriously focused there, | :10:59. | :11:00. | |
how did it feel for you? It felt amazing, going really fast, | :11:01. | :11:03. | |
I thought I was going to beat him, Went too high and had a bit | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
of a reverse effect. That's it for the short version of | :11:08. | :11:24. | |
Click at the side battle on. Please check out the full-length version, | :11:25. | :11:29. | |
there's so much more amazing stuff available on iPlayer right now and | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
you get me through the week on Twitter @BBCclick. Thanks so much | :11:34. | :11:37. | |
for watching and we'll see you soon. | :11:38. | :11:39. |