Sure, plastic is light, durable, and easy to mold, but there's something so raw and medieval about a metal exoskeleton -- built long before anyone could call it steampunk -- that it makes us want to strap on our hard hat, hop in the Engadg-O-Matic Time Machine, and travel back to a bulkier past where we could give this big guy a painful hug. Check the source link for all sorts of adorable / frightening prototype illustrations of General Electric's army-commissioned "Hardiman force amplifying exoskeleton" from 1967, and feel free to drift off to happier times in the process. Just come back at some point, cool?


Visualized: GE's exoskeleton from a heavy metal past-future