Implants in the Werks
A new Grand Junction company is developing medical implants made of ceramics. C5 Medical Werks makes parts used in hip, spine and dental implants. The company is a recent spinout of CoorsTek, a private ceramics manufacturer based in Golden and owned by the Coors family.
The company exhibited some of its small implant parts last week at BioWest, a regional conference and expo for the medical device and bioscience industries.
“There’s a growing demand for joint replacements,” said Tim Haen, director of sales and marketing for C5. “Medical devices are moving towards ceramics, in the place of metal and plastic components.”
CoorsTek supplies components for the automotive, semiconductor, oil, gas, aerospace and electronic industries.
Robotics turning the corner
The predictions of futurists have often fizzled on the subject of robots, which today can vacuum floors and play chess but not drive a car.
But an exciting demonstration several weeks ago in the Nevada desert suggests that technologists are getting closer than anybody realized to a robotic car. Within about two years, the first car able to drive autonomously on freeways will be a reality, predicts Sebastian Thrun, Stanford University’s guru of robotic cars and the winner of the Pentagon’s Grand Challenge race in October. The Grand Challenge, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, pitted teams that had built cars able to autonomously navigate and drive an off-road course in the desert.
The Stanford team won a $2 million prize for completing the course in the shortest time among a field of 23 finalists, five of which were able to cross the finish line. In a similar contest last year, no entry finished.
