I guess this was the very first invention that I’ve made. Of course, I was more involved in the design department. Vidrighin Mihai and Tudor Macicasan came with the idea first.
However, the prototype you will see in these articles has been designed by all of us. The initial one just placed springs on lego-robot legs.
This, how you see it in the articles, is exactly how we’ve designed it. I’ll try to find some of our sketches and the exact presentation we took to Intel ISEF 2006.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/04/01/these-high-tech-exoskeletons-slip-on-like-boots-to-make-your-movements-more-efficient/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ef786e363336
https://www.nature.com/news/exoskeleton-boots-improve-on-evolution-1.17237
Saving Energy While Running was a ground-breaking discovery and it has been patented by other technology companies after the event.
We will probably make this project happen again at one point.
Since there have been so many prototypes made, the idea is a good one and the idea which inspired us has many applications.
We guessed that since the springs do such a great job to propel the human leg, then you could basically run really fast with just one leg used for the motion.
I remember when Vidrighin ran using our “Saving Energy While Running” device and he had a great time running on just ONE foot.