Development of bionic ankles at MIT

I was barreling down the court on a 1v1 runout, and the score was tied 10-10, playing to 11. Admittedly, the house rules state that a team must win by two, so it wasn't the most important play of the game -- but I still deemed it sufficiently important to risk injury on what would've been a truly dazzling trip to the "hole". Instead, I planted my inner left foot right on the defender's toe, rolled my ankle with all my might, and crashed to the ground with a flurry of profane objections.

And to think, this all could've been avoided if I had a bionic ankle!

Scientists from MIT filed a United States Patent Application in February for just that: a bionic foot and ankle system.

I wanted to read the whole thing to find the interesting parts from an engineering perspective. However, in a monotonous gauntlet of back-references, subsections, and a shameless abuse of the word "said", the patent attorneys dismantled my mind with boredom, as seems to be their forté. So, instead of including a list of highlights here, I'll just post a link: US Patent Application filing.

If that reading's a bit too dry for you, check out the post at New Scientist Tech.

Engadget commenter 'KYDS3K' probably put it best:

"built-in safety feature that prevents foot rotation beyond a specified angle"

why? that would be AWESOME!!! you could do some amazing kung-fu with a 360-degree rotating foot!!!

I can't help but agree.