Enter Z-Man

Neglect ropes, ladders, and superpowers. Engineers atprototypes, one attached to glass, the other to a
Draper Laboratory are working on a task for thatcement. The team from Draper, a Cambridge not for
military that could allow soldiers to imitate theprofit lab that largely conducts research and
wall-climbing ability of Spider-Man - and thedevelopment for that government, was not permitted
glass-clinging strength of Gecko-Man, if only such ato say whether they had been successful in creating
superhero existed.pads which will permit a soldier with combat load to
Enter Z-Man, the progeny of the Cambridge laboratoryscale a 25-foot wall in 15 seconds.
and a federal agency born within the Cold War toThose are the capabilities envisioned in the scant
maintain US military technology a step ahead of theparticulars concerning the project found in unclassified
Soviets.documents about the website of the Defense
The task is too sensitive to become talked aboutAdvanced Research Projects Agency, which was
openly, but as well exciting to be kept a top secret. Socreated in 1958 after the surprise Soviet launch of
the engineers developing it gave the public a peek atSputnik to keep the US military about the cutting edge
the technology at the Very first Robotics Competition,of technologies.
a competition of student-built, soccer-playing robotsAmong the main sponsors from the Boston Regional
that drew thousands to Boston University AgganisVery first Robotics tournament, Draper decided to
Arena.offer this uncommon peek into the Z-Man Program to
Beyond the mechanical goal-scoring, the colorfullyexcite the pupils in attendance with one of the
outfitted undergraduate challengers, and also thecoolest  out of all the crazy cool things that Draper
boisterous cheering crowds of people, the Draperdoes, said Ellen Avery, Draper's community relations
exhibit occupied a quiet corner from the concourse.manager, speaking over the crashing robot sounds
Set up around the bend from a pizza stand andfrom the arena.
beneath an action shot of former BU great HarryBut being a semisecret defense project, the Z-Man
Agganis in his football uniform, the Z-Man engineersdisplay was consequently vague and limited. Carter
wowed passersby with two prototypes of the climbingspoke about the physics behind the technologies, being
technologies.a colleague exhibited how very easily the prototypes
One imitates the microscopic bumps a gecko uses toattached and came off the vertical surfaces.
adhere to smooth surfaces via a power recognizedThat at least proposed that peoples hands or feet can
as the van der Waals interaction; the other uses rowsuse the technologies to scale vertical surfaces the
of freely moving fish hooks to grab the minusculesame way - if Draper pads can be modified to handle
nooks and crannies in concrete and bricks, not unlikethe weight of a human. And if they can, look out for
the way a spider climbs.Z-Man.
Small barbell weights dangled from the hand-sized