伊斯顿·拉沙佩尔:制造革命性机械手臂的少年

2016-11-30 06:05byEastonLaChappelle
疯狂英语·初中天地 2016年6期
关键词:查德配管手臂

by Easton LaChappelle

翻译:Cass

伊斯顿·拉沙佩尔:制造革命性机械手臂的少年

by Easton LaChappelle

翻译:Cass

Track 4

美国少年伊斯顿·拉沙佩尔在14岁时带着自己用乐高积木和钓鱼线做出的机械手臂参加了一个科技博览会。在博览会上,他遇到了一个只有半截手臂的七岁女孩,自此他想用自己的发明改变他人的生活、改变世界,于是他一头扎进了研究当中。五年后,一个由3D打印零件组成、成本低于一千美元、可由意念控制的机械手臂在他手中诞生了!他因此被媒体誉为“下一个乔布斯或比尔·盖茨”。他还成立了自己的公司,目前致力于开发外骨骼系统,帮助截瘫病人重获行走能力。

Heather Turco (Anchor): Nineteen years old! That is just crazy to be doing...

Chad Oliver (Anchor): Welcome.

Easton LaChappelle: Thank you for having me.

Heather: ...so many things that you’re doing. Now I understand you created your first hand using…Legos? Legos and1)electrical tubing? Talk about that. What drew you to just even come up with this in your mind that you wanted to do this?

Easton: Yeah. You know, uh, for me, I lived in a very small town in2)Colorado. I was bored, I took, you know, I was going to school. I took it seriously, but I kinda felt my3)passion, which was really creating things, turning ideas into reality. And I came up with my first kind of big idea, a kind of practical idea, I guess, and this was to create a4)robotic hand controlled by a5)wireless control glove. I pieced this together with what I had laying around, which, in this case, was Legos,6)fishing tubing, or um, fishing line as the7)tendons, electrical tubing as the fingers, and uh, slowly started8)progressing from that.

Chad: Easton, we’re looking at some video [sic】, and I’m guessing this is from your house…

Easton: Yep, yep.

Chad: …of one of your early robotic arms. What9)functions did you10)program it to do,human-like functions?

Easton: So I actually had it, uh, being able to11)toss a ball to you, shake your hand, uh,12)flex, uh, do some simple tasks such as picking things up from a table and things like that, trying to make it as human as possible.

Heather: Now, are13)prosthetic companies welcoming your technology, are they listening to you, are you getting the attention of “the bigs” is what I’m asking?

Easton: You know, we are, because the technology that I’ve developed and the company has developed now, uh, is actually better than what’s out there. It’s more functional. Uh, with this hand you actually have14)individual finger movement, which is something that’s new within the whole prosthetic15)industry in general. Uh, we also have a really interesting business model, which, uh, in this case, we actually16)release this for free. We actually—it’s open source.

Chad: That is fascinating!

Easton: You can go on our web site, you can download the files. If you have a 3-D17)printer or if you know somebody who has a 3-D printer, you can print this and use it for any sort of18)application you think of.

Heather: That’s amazing!

1) electrical tubing 电气配管

2) Colorado [kɒlə'rɑːdəu】 n. 美国科罗拉多州

3) passion ['pæʃən】 n. 激情,热情

4) robotic [rəu'bɒtIk】 adj. 机器人的,自动的

5) wireless ['waIəlIs】 adj. 无线的

6) fishing tubing 钓鱼套管

7) tendon ['tendən】 n. 腱,筋

8) progress ['prəugres】 v. 进行,稳定地改善

9) function ['fʌŋkʃən】 n. 功能

functional ['fʌŋkʃənəl】 adj. 实用的,有功能的

10) program ['prəugræm】 v. 设计或编写(程序)

11) toss [tɒs】 v. 投掷

12) flex [fleks】 v. 弯曲,伸缩

13) prosthetic [prɒs'θetIk】 adj. 假体的,义肢的

14) individual [IndI'vIdjuəl】 adj. 个别的

15) industry ['IndəstrI】 n. 行业

16) release [rI'liːs】 v. 发布

17) printer ['prIntə】 n. 打印机

18) application [æplI'keIʃən】 n. 应用

Chad: So instead of19)charging $80,000 for a prosthetic hand, you figured out a way, you set a goal: “I wanna…I wanna design this for under $1,000”?

Easton: Yep. Under $1000.

Chad: That seems like such a big20)discrepancy between what the big companies are charging and what you’re able to do for under a thousand21)bucks.

Easton: Well, the biggest thing is there is new22)licenses, there’s new business models that these prosthetic companies have been around for 30 years. You know, it’s a really interesting industry, um, but with these new business models and these new technologies and23)enabling technologies, such as 3-D printing, it allows us to be24)disruptive, but do it in the right way, to,and be able to protect ourselves and, you know, actually be able to compete with these big guys now.

Heather: And Easton’s getting to travel all around the world, you know, showing off this technology, which is amazing. If you got some people at home and maybe have kids, and, you know, they’re really into creating and building,what would you tell a young25)entrepreneurs[sic】 or people who are wanting to come up with something and invent something?

Easton: Well, uh, we have so many resources,26)literally at our27)fingertips in today’s world. There’s so much knowledge all around us, and,you know, once you find your passion, you know, run with it.28)Curiosity is in all of us, and it’s really up to…to you to29)harness that. Start using curiosity as a tool and to, uh, make the most of it.

19) charge [tʃɑːdʒ】 v. 收费,对……索费

20) discrepancy [dI'skrepənsI】 n. 差异

21) buck [bʌk】 n. <口>美元

22) license ['laIsəns】 n. 许可,授权

23) enabling technology 使能技术,促成技术

24) disruptive [dIs'rʌptIv】 adj. 破坏性的,颠覆的

25) entrepreneur [ɒntrəprə'nʒː】 n. 企业家

26) literally ['lItərəlI】 adv. 简直,差不多

27) fingertip ['fIŋgətIp】 n. 指尖

28) curiosity [kjuərI'ɒsItI】 n. 好奇心,求知欲

29) harness ['hɑːnIs】 v. 驾驭,利用

参考译文

希瑟·图尔科(主播):十九岁!真是不可思议,能够做到……

查德·奥利弗(主播):欢迎。

伊斯顿·拉沙佩尔:谢谢你们的邀请。

希瑟:……你正在做许多事情。我的理解是,你的第一只机械手臂是用……乐高积木创造的?乐高积木和电气配管?真了不起,是什么使你萌生了要做这件事的想法呢?

伊斯顿:是的。你知道,嗯,对我来说,我住在科罗拉多州一个非常小的镇子里。我感到很无聊,你知道,虽然我也上学。虽然我也很用心地学习,但我常觉得自己的热情在于发明创造,把想法变成现实。我想我的第一个创意点子是一个颇为实用的想法,就是创造一只由无线控制手套操控的机械手。我把手头上已有的东西拼凑在一起,当时我有乐高积木、钓鱼套管,还有,唔,钓鱼线,用这些作为肌腱,再用电气配管作为手指,然后,嗯,在这个基础上慢慢改进。

查德:伊斯顿,我们来观看一些视频,我猜这是在你家里拍的……

伊斯顿:对,是的。

查德:……拍的是一个你初期做的机械手臂。你给它设计了什么功能,能像人类一样做些什么呢?

伊斯顿:实际上我设计了,嗯,让它能够朝你扔一个球、和你握手,唔,弯曲活动,唔,做一些简单的动作,比如从桌子上捡起东西之类的,我努力使它变得更像真人的手臂。

希瑟:现在,制造假肢的公司是否看好你的技术,他们会听你的吗,我想问的是你(的公司)有没有得到那些“巨头公司”的关注?

伊斯顿:你知道,由于我和我的公司现在已开发的技术其实比市面上现有的同类产品要好,所以确实得到了他们的关注。我们公司的机械手臂性能更好。唔,实际上这只机械手的每根手指都有单独运动的功能,大体上这在整个假肢行业前所未有。嗯,我们也有着十分有趣的经营模式,唔,事实上我们免费公开发布这项技术。事实上我们—这是公开共享的资源。

查德:这太有吸引力了!

伊斯顿:你可以登陆我们的网站下载文件。如果你有3D打印机或者身边有人有3D打印机,你就能够把它打印出来,应用到你所能够想到的用途中去。

希瑟:这太令人惊叹了!

查德:所以,与售价八万美元的义肢不同,你想出了办法,并定下了目标:“我要……我要研发出成本低于一千美元的机械手臂”?

伊斯顿:是的。低于一千美元。

查德:这看起来差异真大,巨头公司漫天要价,而你花不到一千美元就做到了。

伊斯顿:嗯,最重要的是,在那些假肢公司出现三十年后,这个行业终于有了新的技术使用权限,以及新的经营模式。你知道,这确实是一个有趣的行业,唔,随着新的经营模式、新兴技术和使能技术—例如3D打印技术—的出现,我们能够颠覆原有的一切,不过,是以正确的方式颠覆,以此保护我们自己,并真正地和那些巨头们竞争。

希瑟:而且,伊斯顿还将环游世界,到处推广这项炫酷的技术。如果有些人赋闲在家,或已经有小孩,嗯,你知道,是很热衷于发明创造的人,对于年轻的企业家或是想要搞新发明的人,你会给他们什么样的忠告?

伊斯顿:嗯,唔,我们拥有很多资源,在如今的世界里,简直可以说是一切唾手可得。我们周围有那么多知识,你知道,一旦你找到了自己的热情所在,你知道的,那就尽情追求吧。好奇心人皆有之,而如何利用它,却全在于你自己。去把好奇心作为工具,去充分开发和利用它吧。

Easton LaChappelle:The Teen Who Made a Revolutionary Robot Arm

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