Competing Approaches for Scaling Buildings

• Gekkomat (for sale at 49,000 Euros) uses suction and compressed air cylinders. (So perhaps a venturi for vacuum? -- in which case efficiency would be low). Notice the foot attachment mechanism and the provision for the hands to ensure that the loading is mostly in the vertical plane, to reduce required pull-in forces. Something comparable will be required in our case.
  
  

• MIT Atlas Powered Rope Ascender building scaling device. This design won the MIT Lemelson award.
  

-- MarkCutkosky - 24 Apr 2007