Weekdays Russian Cyborg
Hi, my name is Konstantin and I am an ordinary Russian cyborg.
My hands are bioelectric prostheses. Every day, high technology helps me to live a normal life. In this blog I will explain in detail what it is like to be a little bionic in our time. And you will learn what cool cyborgs are prepared in the company “Motorika” , and about what modern artificial limbs exist in reality, and which - only in beautiful videos on YouTube.
')
In this blog there will be no interviews and stories about overcoming disability - let's leave it to Andrei Malakhov. The time of terminators and cyborgs comes. And they are already among you, almost nobody knows about it. Who cares, welcome under cat.
Of course, the word "cyborg" I use for red words. Here are a couple of definitions for this term:
My dentures are not part of the body. They are not connected to the nerves, and no special surgical operations are required for their installation. So technically, I am not a cyborg, but I still prefer to define myself that way.
I am convinced that the development of science and technology in the foreseeable future will turn millions of people with disabilities into real supermen. So far my bionic prostheses cannot feel and they are not directly controlled by the brain, but nevertheless I feel like a cyborg pioneer. In terms of development, I would compare modern prostheses with mobile phones in the early 90s - the prospects are huge, but the implementation is still so-so.
I am probably the proud owner of probably the most well-known on the Internet highly functional prosthetic hands Bebionic3 and the simpler bioelectric brushes Myofacil:
Bebionic3
Myofacil
Briefly about the principle of operation of bionic (myoelectric / bioelectric) prostheses. There are 2 EMG sensors in the prostheses of the prosthesis that are tightly pressed to the two muscles of the forearm - these muscles are simply called the flexor and the extensor. When I strain the extensor (the muscle on the outside of the forearm), the brush opens. When I strain the flexor - the hand closes:
Illustrations from the 1968 book Conversations about Bionics. By the way, the first bioelectric brush was invented in the Soviet Union in 1958.
Bebionic3 is capable of 14 different grips. Their switching is performed using the same two signals. When the brush is fully opened, it is enough to send another signal to the disclosure and another grip will turn on, about which the user is informed about the sound and vibrating signal. Different grip patterns are switched by pressing this button on the outside of the palm:
On the management and characteristics of prostheses in the future I will make a separate post, but for now you can read about it in my interview.
Compared to the majority of Russian amputees, I was very lucky, because I have high-tech prostheses, besides just two pairs. At the moment in Russia everything is very bad with obtaining normal prostheses at the expense of the state. In general, obtaining technical means of rehabilitation in our country is a big problem. In the future, be sure to write about it separately.
I have been living with bionic prostheses for 2 years and perhaps the most difficult thing in my life is to accept myself. And it is still difficult to lift coins from a flat surface.
At the moment, none of the artificial limbs invented by man can completely replace the hand. This is especially obvious when it is necessary to make a complicated manipulation - tie shoelaces, peel potatoes, get a card from a wallet. In general, the process of getting items from your pocket very much resembles this:
The hand-claw drops in your pocket, closes and maybe you get something. Or not. Good thing you can try as many times as you want and it's free.
The problem is that there is no feedback in the prostheses, so you cannot feel the object. To take the object in hand, you need to see it. Although with experience I learned to understand whether I took the object or not, by the sound of the engines in the brush, but in a noisy place this skill is useless.
But the most hated for me is coins. Hell begins when you need to lift a coin from a flat surface. Dentures do not allow to lift so small objects, they do not have nails to pick up coins. It takes quite a long time to mess around. This technique helps me: with one hand you need to press the edge of a coin so that the other edge rises and the coin can be grabbed. Because of this, in order to pick up the change in the store, I have to dig for a long time under the gun of surprised looks of sellers and onlookers. Brrr. Therefore, I am used to paying with a card, and if there is no such possibility, I don’t take away the change in principle. A similar situation occurs in public transport. In my native Voronezh, the fare is paid in cash, so before I get on the bus, I hold the necessary amount of coins in my hand in advance:
In general, I strongly support the rejection of physical money and the widespread non-cash. I think that other cyborg support me.
Learning to do everything anew, of course, is not easy. Now I can do up to 90% of household operations with my own hands. Something turns out better, something worse, but I can fully serve myself, travel, work, etc. But to be different every day, to cause goggles, to constantly draw attention to oneself is my main discomfort. High-tech prostheses give me the opportunity to be an independent person, but for everyone around me I turned into a wonder. And this is understandable - people tend to stare at everything unusual. Constantly being the center of attention is very tiring, so basically I wear Myofacil dentures with cosmetic gloves. Gloves "under the skin" on close inspection immediately give out cyborg, but people rarely look at other people's hands, which means that I can go shopping and no one even notice that I am a cyborg. And for me it is important. I believe that genuine cyborgization will begin when we are not able to immediately distinguish an ordinary person from a biotechnological one.
Next time I will tell you how I participated in the first cyborgs competition in the history of mankind. Subscribe, it will be interesting.
My hands are bioelectric prostheses. Every day, high technology helps me to live a normal life. In this blog I will explain in detail what it is like to be a little bionic in our time. And you will learn what cool cyborgs are prepared in the company “Motorika” , and about what modern artificial limbs exist in reality, and which - only in beautiful videos on YouTube.
')
In this blog there will be no interviews and stories about overcoming disability - let's leave it to Andrei Malakhov. The time of terminators and cyborgs comes. And they are already among you, almost nobody knows about it. Who cares, welcome under cat.
Cyborg or disabled?
Of course, the word "cyborg" I use for red words. Here are a couple of definitions for this term:
Biological organism containing mechanical or electronic
components, machine-human hybrid (Wikipedia).
A person who changes and modifies himself by various kinds of experiments with his appearance, implanting metal fragments, biochips, chips into separate parts of his body and into the cerebral cortex (Efremova Explanatory Dictionary)
My dentures are not part of the body. They are not connected to the nerves, and no special surgical operations are required for their installation. So technically, I am not a cyborg, but I still prefer to define myself that way.
I am convinced that the development of science and technology in the foreseeable future will turn millions of people with disabilities into real supermen. So far my bionic prostheses cannot feel and they are not directly controlled by the brain, but nevertheless I feel like a cyborg pioneer. In terms of development, I would compare modern prostheses with mobile phones in the early 90s - the prospects are huge, but the implementation is still so-so.
Prostheses
I am probably the proud owner of probably the most well-known on the Internet highly functional prosthetic hands Bebionic3 and the simpler bioelectric brushes Myofacil:
Bebionic3
Myofacil
Briefly about the principle of operation of bionic (myoelectric / bioelectric) prostheses. There are 2 EMG sensors in the prostheses of the prosthesis that are tightly pressed to the two muscles of the forearm - these muscles are simply called the flexor and the extensor. When I strain the extensor (the muscle on the outside of the forearm), the brush opens. When I strain the flexor - the hand closes:
Illustrations from the 1968 book Conversations about Bionics. By the way, the first bioelectric brush was invented in the Soviet Union in 1958.
Bebionic3 is capable of 14 different grips. Their switching is performed using the same two signals. When the brush is fully opened, it is enough to send another signal to the disclosure and another grip will turn on, about which the user is informed about the sound and vibrating signal. Different grip patterns are switched by pressing this button on the outside of the palm:
On the management and characteristics of prostheses in the future I will make a separate post, but for now you can read about it in my interview.
Compared to the majority of Russian amputees, I was very lucky, because I have high-tech prostheses, besides just two pairs. At the moment in Russia everything is very bad with obtaining normal prostheses at the expense of the state. In general, obtaining technical means of rehabilitation in our country is a big problem. In the future, be sure to write about it separately.
Why do coins bother me
I have been living with bionic prostheses for 2 years and perhaps the most difficult thing in my life is to accept myself. And it is still difficult to lift coins from a flat surface.
At the moment, none of the artificial limbs invented by man can completely replace the hand. This is especially obvious when it is necessary to make a complicated manipulation - tie shoelaces, peel potatoes, get a card from a wallet. In general, the process of getting items from your pocket very much resembles this:
The hand-claw drops in your pocket, closes and maybe you get something. Or not. Good thing you can try as many times as you want and it's free.
The problem is that there is no feedback in the prostheses, so you cannot feel the object. To take the object in hand, you need to see it. Although with experience I learned to understand whether I took the object or not, by the sound of the engines in the brush, but in a noisy place this skill is useless.
But the most hated for me is coins. Hell begins when you need to lift a coin from a flat surface. Dentures do not allow to lift so small objects, they do not have nails to pick up coins. It takes quite a long time to mess around. This technique helps me: with one hand you need to press the edge of a coin so that the other edge rises and the coin can be grabbed. Because of this, in order to pick up the change in the store, I have to dig for a long time under the gun of surprised looks of sellers and onlookers. Brrr. Therefore, I am used to paying with a card, and if there is no such possibility, I don’t take away the change in principle. A similar situation occurs in public transport. In my native Voronezh, the fare is paid in cash, so before I get on the bus, I hold the necessary amount of coins in my hand in advance:
In general, I strongly support the rejection of physical money and the widespread non-cash. I think that other cyborg support me.
My challenge is to be an ordinary person.
Learning to do everything anew, of course, is not easy. Now I can do up to 90% of household operations with my own hands. Something turns out better, something worse, but I can fully serve myself, travel, work, etc. But to be different every day, to cause goggles, to constantly draw attention to oneself is my main discomfort. High-tech prostheses give me the opportunity to be an independent person, but for everyone around me I turned into a wonder. And this is understandable - people tend to stare at everything unusual. Constantly being the center of attention is very tiring, so basically I wear Myofacil dentures with cosmetic gloves. Gloves "under the skin" on close inspection immediately give out cyborg, but people rarely look at other people's hands, which means that I can go shopping and no one even notice that I am a cyborg. And for me it is important. I believe that genuine cyborgization will begin when we are not able to immediately distinguish an ordinary person from a biotechnological one.
Next time I will tell you how I participated in the first cyborgs competition in the history of mankind. Subscribe, it will be interesting.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/399751/
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