BERKELY, Calif., May 15 (UPI) -- A paraplegic graduated from the University of California, Berkeley -- or "walked" -- literally aided, he said, by an exoskeleton designed for him at the school.
"We did it! We did it!," Austin Whitney, 22, a double major in history and political science said to the engineers watching him raise himself from his wheelchair and walk seven steps across the stage to receive his diploma along with 2,100 other seniors at UCB's Edwards Stadium Saturday, The Oakland Tribune reported.
The device enabling Whitney to walk is a strap on exoskeleton with robotic legs using leg-brace supports and a trim box-like apparatus supported by hugely powerful batteries and fast computer processors.
It was designed and developed by UC Berkeley engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni working with a team of graduate-student researchers in the Robotics and Human Engineering Lab.
Whitney, of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., became paralyzed in July 2007 when he crashed his car after drinking with friends, the Tribune reported.
"It makes me very hesitant to use the word 'impossible' ever again," Whitney said.
