This week the world’s first Cybathlon was held in Zurich, Switzerland, involving 66 teams representing many countries from around the world. It’s similar to the Paralympics, but instead of being purely a contest pitting athletes against each other, the Cybathlon is also a competition of technologies.
polywalk-at-cybathlonPeople with lower body paralysis used powered exoskeletons to get through a challenging obstacle course and those disabled from the neck down raced through a video game they controlled using brain-computer interfaces. There were also powered arm and prostheses races, bike races in which the participants’ leg muscles were activated using electric stimulators, and powered wheelchair races. We congratulate all the participants, including the athletes and their families, as well as the engineers of the technologies that helped make the races happen.
