Events

Try to support handicapped persons' dream !

Prof. Sankai and members from his Lab joined the challenge by The Dreams Mountaineering Team this summer.The team was led by famous alpinist MR,KEN NOGUCHI.
The team was formed to realize Mr. SEIJI UCHIDA' s dream to climb the Breithorn mountain in Switzerland. Mr. UCHIDA has been quadriplegic for more than 20 years. On 6th of August, finally his dream came true.
His friend TAKASHI MATSUMOTO who worn the robot suit "HAL" which is specially designed for this purpose, carried Mr.UCHIDA on his back, reached within 150 m to the summit of 4,164m Breithorn.
They were forced to return from there in oder to catch the last cable car for Zermatt, however Mr. UCHIDA said " the landscape I saw from Mr. MATSUMOTO' s back was very different from my usual eye level on my wheel chair. It was a fantastic experience. "

Prof. Sankai says " Despite of the severe weather and bad ground conditions, we achieved the great result. In addition, we' ve got many important technical data through this challenge as well. I am really proud of all members who did their best."

- SwissClimbingHAL0.wmv
- QuickTime move

- The Dream Mountaineering Team :
http://with-dreams.org/

- Alpinist Ken Noguchi :
http://www.noguchi-ken.com/message/b_num/2006/6_0823.html (Japanese)