. >> this is the vertical ascender, and basically a personal vacuum cleaner with some plate-size suctionooks they hold on to, to climb up the wall. >> do they do floors? >> this is part of a competition, and they beat more than a dozen other teams coming up with something for the air force. they won $50,000. and they have a chance at $100,000 more to further develop this idea. so basically, what is happening here is this guy has two giant, like, suction cups the vacuum is attached to, so he is sucking himself to the wall. it seems like that would be hard to full that one suction thing off before you put it to the next place. >> they have triggers. so you put it on the wall, you trigger it, so it creates the suction. >> then you get your other one ready and release the trigger. >> that's even scarier. you've only got one suction at a time. >> beth wants maximum suction. >> does it run on gas or battery? >> battery powered. 30 minutes of battery power. they also had one hour to train the commando to use the equipment in order to win. that was part of the competition. >> i like it. the i gi

engineering the department, scaling a brick wall on campus with the help of a device called a vertical ascenderyou're thinking, ezra, that is nothing new, i've saw tom cruise climb with suction gloves, yes, that's true. suction has been used in wall climbing before. and not just in movies. but this is different. this isn't suction can cups on a smooth glass surface, it's a vacuum suction capable of lifting 300 pounds up a pitted surface, like a brick wall. just like spider-man. which is apparently of some interest to the u.s. military, specifically the air force research laboratory. they are the people who helped develop the x-37 space plane, the unmanned orbiter that is about to land after spending more than a year in space on a super secret mission. back here on the ground, the air force research laboratory sponsors a contest every year for college students to come up with innovative solutions to warfare challenges. this year the contestants had nine months to design a system that would let four special ops personnel scale buildings or mounted faces. seems like something there might be a need