With technology improving every day, certain engineers are able to develop and create some ambitious projects. Indian student Vimal Govind Manikandan can certainly attest to that, as he built a working Iron Man costume in 2016. However, while the suit was capable of lifting over 300 pounds in weight, the cost of putting it together was much less than expected.
A resident of Kerala, India, Manikandan was in his last year studying Mechanical Engineering at Calicut University in 2016. In September 2015 though, he unveiled an intriguing project to the public. The student had built a large, mechanically-powered exoskeleton prototype known as “Generation 1,” resembling the kind of robotic suit that you’d see in a futuristic sci-fi movie.
Surrounded by a curious crowd, Manikandan showed what his bulky suit could do, before uploading the results to YouTube. The subsequent video, titled “Generation 1 Robotic Technology,” was posted in September 2015 and has earned over 57,000 views since then. However, the following year the student decided to refine his ambitious prototype.