FanStory.com - Saving Mr. Calvin - Chapter 36Bby Jim Wile

It was early on a Saturday morning in the summer of 2004 that we all gathered at the local high school. Besides the four of us on the design team, Claire and Greg, as well as Susan Budrowski, were in attendance to watch the test. There was a large athletic field behind the school that was empty of people at this hour, so we figured this would be the perfect time and place for the test.

Abby slipped into the suit and brought up the saved set of parameters known as “Abby-age 36” for her height, weight, body type, and so on. She had brought a 7-iron and indicated through the keypad on the side that she wanted to hit the ball 140 yards, her usual 7-iron distance. She would take a few practice swings first before stepping up to a ball.

I decided to remind her of a few things. “Remember now, sweetie, to let the suit guide you and try not to influence it in any way. This will undoubtedly be hard at first, but that was your concept of it.”

“I actually do remember that, which will be hard for a control freak like me, but I’ll do my best.”

“Okay then. E.J., drumroll please,” and E.J. started up an iPod with a drumroll on it.

Abby smiled, then began taking the club back, which set the suit in motion. Everything started out fine, and she was in a perfect position at the top of the backswing, but all of a sudden, the suit froze and the iPod switched from the drumroll to the disco sound of “Do the Hustle.” I took the 7-iron from Abby’s hands and watched as the suit guided Abby into dancing the hustle. She cracked up and went with it.

After a few bars of this, the music switched to Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” and Abby and I began twisting to the music. The rest were delirious with laughter, watching as we stood out in that field dancing to “The Twist.” In a few more bars, it switched to Michael Jackson singing “Billie Jean,” and Abby began doing the moonwalk. The playlist finished with a beautiful rendition of “The Blue Danube” waltz, and I waltzed Abby around and around.

“You guys!” she said when it was over. “I never dreamed we’d be able to give Arthur Murray a run for his money too. Now I know why you gave me that reminder about letting the suit do its thing, Kenny. Alright, that was really special. E.J., how long did it take you to program all those dance steps into the suit?”

“Not too long, really. Once we had our basic movement algorithms broken up into distinct subroutines, it was fairly simple to rearrange the order to create dance steps. I had to watch a few online Napster videos to get them right, but it wasn’t too difficult.”

“Well, that was great. Do you mind if we check out the golf swing now?”

“Not at all,” said E.J. “C’mon over here, and I’ll download the correct software from my laptop.”

After the download, Abby was ready to try her practice swing again. I handed her the 7-iron, which she took with a smile and a shake of her head, and once again she addressed the ball and started her backswing. This time, after she got to the top of the backswing, her hips began sliding forward as her shoulders stayed back a beat, then her arms and hands began dropping the clubhead down into the slot, and finally her hands started uncocking when the club was about halfway down. With maximum acceleration and a whoosh through the hitting area, the clubface came squarely into where the ball would be, and she took a shallow divot in the grass as her body turned through the shot. She finished with a nice high follow through in perfect balance, with her body facing in the direction the ball would fly and with most of her weight now on her left side. It was a beautiful swing.

She took two more of these practice swings, and then it was time to try hitting a ball. I had brought a shag bag full of them and spilled a few out on the ground near her. She raked one over, took her address, and started back once again. Her swing looked just like it had during the practice swings, and the clubface contacted the ball perfectly, taking a shallow divot in front of the ball as it should. It rocketed away with a beautifully straight shot with just a yard or two of draw. Total success! We all cheered for Abby’s shot, but we were really cheering our skill in collaboration to create an invention that works. It was a jubilant moment.

This was to be Abby’s day. It was her idea that got us started on this, and we decided to let her be the one to do all the testing today. We put the suit through a variety of paces with a number of different clubs—with half-shots, with higher-than-normal shots as well as knockdown shots, with intentional draws as well as fades. E.J., Eddie, and I made extensive notes, as we could see a number of tweaks that would need to be made. Some of the shot types were more successful than others. Some would require simple programming changes, E.J. said, but others looked like they might take some tweaking of the electric motors and hydraulics.

I asked Abby when she was finished hitting balls for the day what it was like to let the suit do the work for her.

“You do have to really make up your mind to just provide the power but to let the suit take complete control over the direction and timing of the swing. Some of the shots that weren’t so good, I know were the result of my attempting to exert some force against the suit. But I’ll tell you what; it really helped demonstrate to me an aspect of my swing I would frequently get wrong. I sometimes tend to rush my transition and start down too quickly from the top, but the suit urged me to take a fraction of a second pause before changing direction and starting down. Each time I rushed it, I could feel it pushing against me to stop. Once I put that fraction of a second pause in there, it was as smooth as silk and offered no resistance. This did wonders for my timing, and I was able to pick up maybe five or ten yards on my shots with a little more accuracy. The feedback it provides is amazing. If you do everything right, it offers no resistance anywhere, and the swing just feels perfect.”

“Great,” I said. “So, even you, a good golfer, learned something from it.”

“I did!”

We were all delighted by the fact that the suit could teach a good golfer like Abby something new. It ended up being a very successful first day of testing the prototype—better than anyone expected.