THE FIBER BLOCK SPRING
Year 02012
The purity of the Flight Source was not forgotten, and alternative methods for manipulating the tensile rope elements were under development. This intension lead to the fact that actuation is a major limiting factor, not the elastic element.
Articulating the Fiber Blocks or the Flight Source springs became the real challenge. There was no actuator that came close to matching the efficiency of the light weight springs designed. This led to the insight that it is not springs that is not holding back industry, it is actuation.
The quest to develop a comparable actuator begins.
Working with the overtly complex Flight Source Spring components in the Hero Board informed the team to simplify and increase robustness of the components they design. With new insights and experienced pain points from trying to implement components to systems, the Flight Source Springs complexity dropped significantly. This improved version is nicknamed "The Fiber Block". Although not as ideal as working with pure tension and pure compression, the Fiber Block Springs eliminated the need for tensile string elements to simplify assembly at the cost of power density metrics. The improved spring component also featured the ability to add or remove sections to tune & change the behavior characteristics of the spring. The overall column-like form it takes on is more familiar to what engineers are used to when designing with off the shelf components for hopes of better acceptance & adoption.