Star Wars-like breathing mask concept mimics fish gills

Say what you will about Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, but you have to admit that, overall quality of the film notwithstanding, it featured a lot of technological marvels that every tech geek could only wish were real.

 

Aside from the impressive podracers and the droidekas (destroyer droids) that could literally curl up into balls of compact metal death, the movie also had A99 aquata breathers – the weird-looking devices that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn bit on when they visited Otoh Gunga, the underwater city on Naboo.

 

 

 

Interestingly, those nifty Star Wars underwater “masks” that mimicked fish gills may have served as the inspiration for designer Jeabyun Yeon’s new scuba mask concept, called the Triton Oxygen Mask for Diving.

 

May the fish be with you

 

Based on “artificial gill model” technology developed by a Korean scientist, the Triton is designed to be a “convenient” mouthpiece respirator that does not require the use of a large helmet, restrictive strap-on mask, or even a heavy oxygen tank.

 

All the user needs to do is to bite on the mouthpiece – an action that, according to Yeon, also eliminates the need to inhale or exhale.

 

The Triton works by using a filter with fine threads to extract oxygen from water that it sucks in through its two “arms.” The arms, which are designed to look scaly, have “holes smaller than water molecules” for taking in water from which to extract oxygen.

 

A micro compressor then stores the oxygen in a small tank and releases the excess fluid, allowing the user to absorb the oxygen like a fish. The compressor is powered by a micro battery that is supposedly 30 times smaller than its contemporaries, but charges a thousand times faster.

 

'Patience, my blue friend'

 

As good as it sounds, however, the Triton isn’t something you can buy in stores.

Well, not yet, at least.

Yeon himself describes it as “a future product” that may be able to address the needs of people who either lack the necessary skill to operate complicated skin scuba equipment or are afraid of breathing underwater.

 

On the bright side, this means a smaller chance for this summer’s casual swimmers to swim into the depths and accidentally encounter some kind of terrible underwater creature – or even worse, Jar Jar Binks.  — TJD, GMA News