Nate Ball: Mechanical Engineer and Daredevil

You may know him as the host of PBS’s Design SquadHome . DESIGN SQUAD GLOBAL | PBS KIDS or for his guest appearances on The Discovery Channel in programs like Mythbusters.



These days Nate Ball is an engineer on the go, whether he’s creating useful gadgets or teaching himself to do a back flip off a wall (see the video below for a demonstration). Nate received both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from M.I.T., where he studied mechanical engineering - when he wasn’t busy being an NCAA All-American pole-vaulter, that is.
Most recently he invented the ATLAS Ascender, a rope-climbing device that allows people to quickly scale the faces of cliffs and buildings in a Batman-like fashion. This gravity-defying invention is already in use by the US Army and countless rescue squads, and won Nate the 2007 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Student Innovation.

[video=youtube;Pt4J47D58es]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt4J47D58es&feature=player_embedded#![/video]

[Source: EGFI]

Says Nate of confronting his less successful experiments: “The more something fails, the more I can learn from it.”
His words of inspiration for young engineers?



“Anytime you’re a little bit scared, but you make yourself do and and push yourself through…and you come out on top – that’s the greatest feeling ever.”

Replies

  • ISHAN TOPRE
    ISHAN TOPRE
    That is simply awesome.Simple but great thinking.Don't know where do you people get such great videos 😀

You are reading an archived discussion.

Related Posts

hi guys, i had a task designing gearbox for aircraft application. i need to reduce the speed from 6500 rev to 2000 rev. Do you guys have any ideas on...
Hello dear CEans! You always provide me a way out. this time I want to know what can we learn from alstom if do internship their. If somebody has worked...
Hi guys, I, Devansh Nuwal, am presently pursuing my B.Tech Program at IIT Kanpur in Civil Engineering. I am a 3rd year student and I am looking for an opportunity...
Wishing a very happy Birthday to CEan RajdeepCE. 😀 PS: Haven't seen him on CE since long!
CEans, Steve Wozniak (Woz) is the Apple Co-founder and Inventor of Personal Computers. Steve Woz along with Steve Jobs founded Apple computers back in 1970s. Steve Wozniak is 'the real...