Walker describes how their work began about two years ago when the production company contacted him. His team proposed to obtain the very latest prosthetics and build a human from it. As Walker says, ‘see if it stands up and walks!’ Their objective was to show people the latest artificial body parts, all of which can be used in the real world. Rex was born after two and a half months of late nights and lots of pizza.
Then there are the more conventional prosthetics like the artificial hand, which uses signals from nerves in the human body for picking up and holding things. Walker explains, ‘to get the hand to pick something up, we had to simulate the human nerve signals that it would look for in the human body.’
Walker is very surprised by how well technology is being used to build organs to function effectively when the original organ fails. So the artificial pancreas provides insulin and when insulin levels fall, insulin is released. When the insulin level rises again, the mechanical pancreas can absorb it, just like the real pancreas.