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• Six years ago a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., issued a unique challenge: build a robotic arm using artificial muscles that could arm wrestle a human.
• The results of that challenge will be determined next week, when three such robotic arms will "step into the ring" to compete against a 17- year-old high school student.
• The ultimate goal is to win against the strongest human on Earth.
• When he issued the challenge, Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen, a physicist at JPL, wanted to jump-start research in electroactive polymers, also known as artificial muscles.
• If the robotic arm wins, it will open doors for many engineering technologies in medicine, military defense and even entertainment.
• "You have to ask whether science fiction drives reality, or reality drives science fiction," Bar-Cohen said.
• Researchers from New Mexico and Switzerland built arms made of plastics and polymers.
• A group of students from Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia will also test their arm invention made of gel fibers and electrochemical cells.
• The arm wrestling contest is one of the highlights at the Electroactive Polymer and Devices conference to be held March 7-10, at the Town and Country Resort & Convention Center in San Diego.
• The conference and competition are part of the Smart Structures and Materials symposium sponsored by the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE).
• Electroactive polymers are simple, lightweight strips of highly flexible plastic that bend or stretch when put into contact with chemicals or electricity.
• "My hope is to see a rover run like a horse on Mars and climb steep mountains like a monkey, allowing us to reach distances and heights that are not possible with wheeled rovers," said Bar-Cohen who has chaired the conference for the past six years.