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Yes, but you can climb stairs without legs. Check out this wheelchair if you don't beleive me. Your robot wouldn't need to get in the car if it had wheels of its own. You probably couldn't climb a ladder without legs, but I can't even remember the last time I climbed a ladder.

From the Segway guy, this wheelchair can climb stairs and tackle pebbly paths.:-P

"Kamen built the iBOT with gyroscopes that are programmed to create balancing capabilities based on an individual's center of gravity. The gyroscopes, in effect, emulate the principle by which humans are able to stand, balance themselves, and navigate around and through various environments and terrain by always offering a counterbalance."

>>Why don't you try going up a flight of stairs in a wheelchair and get back to us with your results?

No problem :)

See; http://www.independencenow.com/home.html# It can climb up and down stairs, raise you up to eye level of other standing humans, handle gravel and other rougher terrain. Costs 20k, but If I needed a wheelchair, that's the one I'd get.

Pretty cool, but if you want to see a real stair climbing robot, check out the iBot. It was made by the same guy who invented the Segway (Dean Kamen). It's a motorized wheelchair that can climb stairs.

iBot

the iBot , Dean Kamen's wheelchair [...] actually has a purpose

Which is why it's being sold by a real company with an actual profit motive and targeted marketing and realistic sales goals and other non-visionary characteristics.

Parent is of course refering to the iBot, Dean Kamen's wheelchair which allows the user to go up and down stairs, as well as going up on the back wheels to be eye-level with people.

It's pretty amazing, and like parent said, actually has a purpose. It allows people in wheelchairs to not be confined to one level of a house, or require assistance to reach things above them.

Johnson & Johnson have a wheelchair that is part manual / part powered called the iGlide.

You may want to check it out depending on your level of ability. Unless you really insist on the DIY approach.... ;)

Here's some better info on the iBot wheelchair.

Dean Kamen, the guy who invented the Segway, also created the IBOT, a wheelchair that can climb stairs and rise up to put disabled people at eye level of standing people. It's a pretty amazing invention. Did I mention that it can hold up to 250 pounds?

What a coincidence!. It looks like Dean Kamen's company was working on just such a thing!

Okay, now to turn off the sarcasm (sorry, I couldn't resist) - Kamen was working on the just-approved product called iBot for quite some time. It was the "Fred" to Segway's "Ginger" (after legendary film dance pair Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers), and was in the FDA approval process for quite some time before being approved earlier this year as a medical device. iBot can maneuver disabled humans in an upright position, navigate stairs, and handle terrain that would stymie conventional wheelchairs. I believe they cost around $20k - they're being sold commercially through a Johnson & Johnson division.

It's known that Kamen is working on a Stirling Engine variant. There's been a lot of speculation that it's being developed as a power source for a Segway 2.0-type device. A Stirling power source could seriously improve the range of a Segway and make it a much more practical means of travel.

Forget the segway, get yourself an ibot. The ibot is what Kamen was really working on and the segway was just a an offshoot. Since the FDA finally approved the device, it should soon be commercially available. Convince your health insurance or medicare or your rich uncle that you need one and you'll be ten times the geek a segway would make you.

As slashdot has reported before the iBOT is Very good at balancing, you can sit in it and it'll hold you up right all by itself, quite impressive. If they can do it with an iBOT theres nothing to say they can't do it with this. Although working with wheels is a lot easier than an exoskeleton. Its just a mathmatics in the end and whether the skeleton can respond fast enough. Interresting point, I look forward to seeing how well it balances.

Also checkout Asimo which shows brillant balance technology, being able to stand on one leg and compensate if its pushed.

iBOT

Check out the iGlide which is likely more what you are thinking of. Check out the videos of it in action (no sound).

http://www.independencenow.com/iglide/index.html

-- From the web site --
Get a boost

Imagine being able to go further and keep going
longer, all with the same effort. The
INDEPENDENCE iGLIDE Manual Assist
Wheelchair is a brand new category in high-
quality wheelchairs. The iGLIDE
Manual Assist Wheelchair is designed
to supplement your own natural effort with a
smooth, motorized motion. We call it "Manual
Assist" because it puts you in control of
your motion, and gives you a boost when you
need it. In this way, it assists your own
manual effort by gently propelling the chair
using a small, tucked-away power source and
a "smart" microprocessor.

Now you can enjoy amusement parks, long trips
on the boardwalk, and rolling hills... you can
move over grass and carpet...all with the same
effort. All thanks to the advances found only
in the INDEPENDENCE iGLIDE Manual Assist
Wheelchair.

The wheelchair rides around on 2 wheels like the segway as seen in this article. Since this is designed for disabled people, would it be able to keep its balance when a person with constant siezures was placed in it? Even when the wheelchair climbed stairs?

What is impressive and life-changing about the segway is not the segway itself, but the technology it employs. The same technology that powers the segway also powers the IBOT, something like a wheelchair, delivering a previously unheard of amount of mobility to disabled users.