Cybathlon Click

THEME SONG PLAYS. This week, heads, shoulders, knees, and toes. All of

them bionic, all of them ready to race. This is the Cybathlon! THEME

SONG PLAYS. APPLAUSE. Welcome to the Cybathlon.

This is the world's first bionic Games. This is a Swiss arena in

Zurich. 2500 people are getting ready to cheer on some of the most

extraordinary athletes you will see this year. This is an event for

those with bionic arms, motorised legs, brain controls and

wheelchairs. It isn't just a challenge for the competitors who

will be called pilots today, but the people who created these devices.

They are awesome. This is going to be awesome. This is what the

Cybathlon is all about. 66 teams from all over the globe have been

designing, building, and training, for this very unique competition.

Disabled athletes here known as pilots will be competing using

advanced assisting devices. The Cybathalon is the brainchild

of this man, Robert Reiner, a professor for sensory

motor systems in Munich. It is an event for people

with disabilities who are allowed to use any kind of technology,

technology that helps them to better We are focusing on challenges

of daily life and by allowing technology,

we can also include people I am most excited about this notion

that scientists and technologists spend the entire year inventing

these crazy bionic limbs and everyone comes together

to compete in this celebratory way. It is fantastic, it is such

an extraordinary expression Each of the six disciplines

will have qualifiers in the morning before the grand finals

in the afternoon. Get around the course

or through the obstacles in the shortest time,

while incurring the lowest Well, that is what it is all

about but this is where We are looking at challenges that

are real day-to-day activities, something like getting

through a door in a wheelchair As we move towards here we see

something showing small detail. The arm prosthesis race involves

being able to open a bottle, open a can, cut bread and as we head

further in this direction, there are different types

upon the floor and when it comes to the exoskeleton race,

the leg prosthetic race and also the motorised wheelchair race,

there are various challenges they have to cross over and in fact

the stairs are looking like one of the real highlights

to that wheelchair race. That is something I'm

looking forward to seeing, they have to be able to get up

and down at the end of the course Back to you, Spen, what do

you have to show us? Our first event of the day

is the Powered Arm Prosthesis Race, a series of tasks designed to really

test those robotic digits and this is what goes

into making a robotic arm. I want to break the physical

barrier between the people At the end of elementary

school I read a comic book I had an interest in both robotics

and the medical field. This sensor can pick

up my signal by pasting So this one is the flexor muscle

and this one is the extended muscle and the third one

is the thigh muscle. muscle and the third one

is the thumb muscle. So, the competitors are using just

two signals to operate this thing. The whole system can analyse

the images, directly Maybe we can win

because of that point. Yes, the Powered Arm Prosthesis Race

is not just about power, it is also about precision

and reliability. The teams need to come up

with the very best ideas to help their pilot,

twist and balance their way along The race is designed to test how

well pilots and their prosthesis can complete tasks that would typically

be challenging for them. Yes, this is the race

where the mightiest tech in the world can be foiled

by the humble clothes peg. I am joined by Martin Wallace

from the company that are making these hands, they are carrying

out some real world What is the next challenge that

you feel you could reasonably The next thing is a very

big technical challenge that would improve functionality

in the touch sensitive nature. There is no feedback in commercially

available hands for getting the signal back to the body

at the moment, how hard someone is gripping something,

how hot something is, all the things you get

with actual fingers. Getting that technology in these

hands would be ideal. What is amazing is the huge variety

in designs for these prosthetic hands, some have five fingers

and some only have two but as long as it does the job,

you have the freedom to design The ultimate victor was a group

of biomechanical engineering Together with their pilot, Bob,

himself an expert in prosthetics, they went for a more established

body-powered approach. This means that physical movements

like reaching forward or lifting your shoulders are used

to control the device. While this gold medal idea

might have won the day, in the end just crossing

the line was enough to send Now, as amazing as all the events

are today, the next one you might think is

particularly unusual, because you are not going to see any

mechanics or any robotics. This is called FES, functional

electric simulation, and it a bike race between two

riders who are using their legs The deal is, both riders

are paralysed, they cannot ordinarily move their legs

and they are using electrical signals to trigger

the muscles in their legs. I had a trampoline

accident back in 2011. And I became what is known

as tetraplegic, I have issues with moving all four limbs,

my legs completely I cannot move. My arms and hands, I have

difficulty moving them. Technology for disabled people

is quite expensive these days, if more technology firms

and universities collaborate they can make the technology more

available for disabled people. To prepare for the Cybathalon I have

been doing about one hour a day I have the arm cycles as well

and we are not allowed to use that, so I had to do some testing to make

sure that my legs are up to speed. At the minimum, I'd like to be

in the top three, although I think I'm doing very well,

I still do not know what is going It is not like the Paralympics

where you sort of have a base rate already, it has happened before,

everything is a bit in the unknown, so until we get there,

who knows what will happen. Well, they wanted third or better

and his wish came true. He was second fastest

of all the qualifiers which placed him in the final

showdown against Mark Moon As the heat continued,

you can see that timing was everything, if the electrical

pulses do not fire at the right time, you can end up

pedalling backwards. Another thing that became clear,

this is a physically exhausting event and that is actually a good

thing, as the creator of the bike Normally, people with spinal injury,

they have wasted muscles, One guy here with more

muscles than I have. There are two different techniques

of FES that we have heard of, one that you stick the electrodes

on the skin but some teams are actually implanting

the electrodes in the legs. We only use adhesive

electrodes or shorts, we made shorts with electrodes

on, you put them on, but they implanted it,

the Americans implanted it. It is a little bit better

for racing performance, but most of them do not want it,

it is very expensive, if it gives trouble and they have

in the past, you have to take it out This can just be used by any person

with a spinal injury almost. And, the race was against

an American with implants that Johnny found himself

in the grand final. And after a monumental

effort from both pilots, it was Mark Moon who

beat Johnny to win. You look seriously focused there,

how did it feel for you? It felt amazing, going really fast,

I thought I was going to beat him, Went too high and had a bit

of a reverse effect. You still did an absolutely great

job, do you feel exhausted? I have been training

a lot beforehand. I have had the bike a long

time and it has been a great piece of kit,

but training for here, tech check yesterday,

five in the morning woke up, ten hours yesterday on the bike,

setting everything up and today, The training for Cybathalon

certainly seems as intense as any athletics event and how

about this for focus? These pilots have complete or severe

loss of moter function and are using a brain controlled

interface to take part in a virtual The key is to generate the right

sort of signals in your brain to make the right sort of moves

and avoid the obstacles and ultimately it was the Swiss team

but stormed to victory. Powered leg prosthesis remain one

of the most well known prosthesis He pilots and navigates obstacles

which seem easy to those with two legs but are really tough

for traditional prosthetics and it was a contender

from Iceland's Rio Knee Now, 30 years ago Sigourney Weaver

picked up an alien Queen and lobbed her out of the air lock

of her spaceship using a powered exoskeleton suit, one of the sci-fi

highlights of my life. Now, admittedly, we are not quite

there with the technology in reality yet, but today's final event

showcases just how far we have, So we thought the exoskeleton

is like a robot that has We basically got three motors,

one is positioned here which does the hip motion

or how big that it moves, the second one is there,

the one for the shank There is the third one,

this motor says how stiff It is basically the computer

or the brain of the exoskeleton where all motions are

saved and recalculated. There is always the possibility that

something gets unplugged, We are quite confident

that this will not happen. It is interesting to see how

they compete against us and how they perform, that is what I am

most excited about. We are like the underdogs,

we only had two years of developing and five months of training

and there are devices that have been developed for ten years and a pilot

is training for four years. It would have been unrealistic

to think we could win. I think we can give a good

performance anyway. Well, they may not have had the time

they wanted to prepare The team narrowly missed out

on a place in the grand final but with a combination of nimble

footwork and sheer perseverance, they won the competition's B final

and finished fifth overall. The final was tense

boiling down to a showdown Like the powered arm race,

the course is made up of obstacles that people with limited movement

can face in everyday life. Sitting down and getting up

is tough, even in an exosuit. These pilots have complete leg

paralysis meaning it was down to the suits to tackle the ramp

and the uneven ground. In the end the USA looked

to have a slight lead but a malfunction allowed the German

pilot to gain the upper hand. Coming down the stairs

it was neck and neck, a matter of who could complete

those vital final few steps and by a whisker,

Germany took the gold. You can see it was exhausting

and after the medal ceremony we caught up with our old friends

to see how they found Very exhausting, like climbing

a mountain or running But it is very nice to be part

of this event and I am very Tell me about the suit? Is it

difficult to operate? You have to handle the steps,

it keeps your mind in a good condition that you do not press

the wrong ones and on top, you get tired more and more,

it is altogether a big challenge. How was that moment for you,

the first time you took Practising and training

for me has nothing to do with how I am walking again,

being back in the situation, So far, it is more like

a work-out for me and a joy. Next up is the powered wheelchair

race, which amongst other things sees them have to get up these

steps, go across there and then Spencer, I believe you have a bit

of history with one of these teams. I met up with one of the teams

earlier in the year and tried out one of their very early prototypes

in wheelchairs and as the internet However they are here and I caught

up with them yesterday and their wheelchair looks even more

impressive and it does work. They are in one of the heats

taking place down there, so I have got everything

crossed for them. And on the start line,

the pilot looked confident. The problem is that the team are not

allowed to intervene or help without

getting disqualified, which meant as the race went on,

they were left at the start. The only thing, it shut down

the connection between the phone I could not do anything,

the wheelchair, now it is working perfectly, but it is like any car

engine, you have to press The problem was that they were stuck

we could not do anything. I'm so sorry, I have seen this

in action and I know The wheelchair final was a much

closer run thing for the four finalists and again you can

really see the variety The Hong Kong team went for these

caterpillar tracks which made short That is not a wheelchair,

that is a wheeltank! But that lack of suspension really

gave the pilot a rocky ride And balance was the big

issue as these chairs Really the climax of the event,

with three pilots all reaching As the Hong Kong pilot had to once

again be thrown about, Florian Hauser showed off a clever

weight lifting feature of the Swiss chair, which ensured

that he did not topple over. In fact, these stairs proved to be

the crucial decider. It was a nail-biting finish that

had the whole crowd, In the final seconds,

the Swiss team came from third place to beat Hong Kong

by just five seconds. It was a great feeling. We trained

so much and it was also well. I don't know.

Is it exhausting and does it take a lot of concentration?

Yes, because I was nervous at the start, I think at the start,

It is like the Mars Rover, it does not matter what kind

You have done a lot of training and each wheel chair has its own special

feature. Can you tell me through some of the highlights of what you

have here? First, that is my steering. That is my programme that

I have. That is the part of my seat so it depends on the level of the

wheelchair. Would this be plausible to using day-to-day life or does it

need more development? It is a perfect type. It had to go smaller,

shorter but it is the right way. You begin with a prototype and then you

adapted. I think in the future it will be, it will be a part of

everyday. And that is it from

the very first Cybathalon. It has, it has been a day filled

with genuine warmth and enthusiasm. Listen to that and the crowd has

made as much noise for the people coming last as they have

for the people coming first, sometimes more noise for the person

who crossed the line last. The other thing I noticed

is that every competitor has finished the race,

even if they know they have not won, even if they have known they have

lost, there is no point, It is about going the distance

and pushing this technology The thing is we often say

it is the taking part, not the winning that matters,

and we do not mean it. I think today, it is

genuinely the case. I hope you have enjoyed it and found

it as fascinating as we have.