Given my profession as a theatre nurse this really got my interest. The da Vinci Surgical System is a set of computers and instrumentation. A technological advancement on the traditional Laparoscopic or “key-hole” surgery in that rather than the instruments being held by the surgeon they are held by a robot. The surgeon controls the movement of the instruments via a console. You can see the system and specs at their website.
Laparoscopic surgery takes a lot of skill. Not having the sense of touch and working from what you see on a monitor is totally different from “open” surgery through an incision in the skin. In fact some surgeons don’t do any laparoscopic surgery at all because it involves a whole new skill set which they have not developed.
So I was impressed at this video as a demonstration of skill with the da Vinci robot in the making of an origami crane. It may not look impressive at first until you see the size of the result. But I would argue that it is probably easier with the robot than free hand without the robot. The robot means that every move is smooth and steady, by hand there is far less precision. But still this is awesome and I could really appreciate the difficulty and skill involved.
