Carbon fibre is strong, but not flexible and difficult to machine. Wendel had to step up: “As chief engineer you have to make tough decisions. Their dream of creating a self-balancing exoskeleton was in danger. So it is crucial to get the pilot involved as quickly as possible.” Not having a pilot was stressful for the entire team. The design is not yet adjustable to a different body shape. “Our current exoskeleton is built to fit the particular body shape of the person controlling it. “Having a test pilot is crucial if we are to reach our goals,” Wendel says. My job is making sure that in the end we don’t have 600 separate parts, but one exoskeleton. Something, however, got in the way: the team struggled to find a pilot. In order not to weaken the frame of the exoskeleton, there was a lot of enthusiasm to experiment with carbon fibre, which is both a light and strong material. Self-balancing would become easier to realise. This year’s obsessions is weight a lighter exoskeleton would require less power from both pilot and motors. Most of its workplace drama comes from the urgency to deliver at least one significant improvement on the existing prototype. As the twenty-seventh and perhaps most important team member, Koen is valued highly within Project MARCH VIII. Project MARCH therefore calls him the ‘pilot’ of the exoskeleton. Koen van Zeeland is the primary test user of the exoskeleton and has control over the movements he makes.
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