Atlas Devices Externship
Our Mission
In January 2017, I and two other interns were tasked with prototyping a smaller version of Atlas’s flagship product, the APA-5 Rope Ascender.
This beast could hoist 2 people up hundreds of meters of rope, but weighing in at over 10kg meant it wasn’t suited to some tactical missions.
We only had a month to do it, but the finished prototype speaks for itself.
APA-5 catalog page
APA-5 in a helicopter rescue
Failure is important sometimes :)
Prototyping
As I was still a Sophomore at this point, this project marked a lot of firsts for me: especially my first Markforged and Protolabs parts (leading to some really fast functional prototypes.
I took ownership over the rope actuator and system integration, while our other externs helped with the electronics, battery, and user interface.
Final Prototype
After some close manufacturing turns, our final prototype came together really well! It featured:
A machined toothed rope interaction scaled down from the larger ascenders
Custom pullies and casing to capture the rope
A safety latch recycled from a Petzyl foot-ascender
A 3D printed user interface and gearbox enclosure
Final Demo!
My final day coincided with a visit from our company’s Norwegian business partner, and we were able to successfully demo the system in front of their executives!
On either side you can see my other interns demoing the system, with our CEO belaying them.
It was a wonderful experience ~
Aftermath
Years of development later by the engineers at Atlas, the concept finally was released as the APA-2, a compact tactical ascender for lower-capacity ascents!
The catalog pages and release images are shown here:
