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Build Your Own Segway
bugbear writes "Robot hacker Trevor Blackwell explains how to build your own
Segway-style balancing scooter. He says it's not that hard
(but he already knows how to build walking robots)."
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Yes, it's just physics, existing public domain parts, and a brain, but I'm sure that won't matter in a court of law these days.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
According to the author, the approximate cost was between $2000-$2500. I'd rather buy 2 of his scooters than give my money to Dean Kamen.
This is not likely a good idea for a few reasons.
1) Who would you send yours to if it gets recalled?
2) How would you scrape yourself from under a bus if yours suddenly whipped you into traffic?
3) The whole Yogic Flyer phenomena takes new meaning when you consider a home-made Segway.
4) The ozone.
How to deal with patent infringement lawsuits. Our local experts from IANAL & Sons will tell you how.
Stay tuned.
Do the bans on Segways apply to this?
I can't help but notice that it lacks training wheels. Guess GWB will have to wait a bit longer before he can join this 'revolution'...
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Build in something to turn it off when it's low on power so you don't fall over.
Great article! But the walking robot... anyone else see the movies? Its hanging from a cable, and seems to go nuts and tip over once it moves an inch or two. Am I missing something? Not as high tech as asimo... that's for sure!
I mean, does it throw you off when the battery dies?
I changed the configuration, and instead of using an electric motor, I made it human powered. I put the wheels front and back instead of sideways... That way I cannot get sued.
Also, I decided to add a sit, because I don't like standing and I have eliminated the giroscopes, they are too expensive.
Hmmmm I think I am going to call my device "the bicycle". It has a nice ring to it.
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
WOuldnt it be better to have bycicle sized wheels on it for stability, and curb climbing ability? ALl the ones ive seen have wheels 1/2 to 1/3(apparently) the size of your average bike wheel.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
That's kind of like making your own pet rock because you can't afford to go out and buy one.
In the fairly likely event of the software crashing, a wire coming loose, a component failing, or the batteries running low, the wheels will lock and the entire kinetic energy of the system is used to accelerate my head toward the ground.
Patent the powered faceplant.
Sue Segway each time they have an accident
I wish I had mod points.. :)
Will code a sig generator for food
Most of the technology that makes the Segway work is patented. So sure you can likely build yourself one without pissing anybody off, but don't plan to start a business making them for another decade or two.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The guy that designed the segway also designed the iBot which is basically a wheelchair that can "walk" on 2 or 4 wheels. This includes the easy navigation of stairs.
Forget about copying the segway...
Copy this device! It goes for about 20k... how many people do you think can really afford this thing? This device allows wheelchair-bound people to practically walk again!
Drugs go generic... but I fear this thing will be too pricey for a long time to come.
Sounds like fun to me!
Game Overdrive - Gaming News
Somehow I can't stop thinking that the recent recall of the Segway's was somehow due to the spill that Bush took. The photo of the President taking a fall on his Segway seems to match exactly the symptoms described in the recall notice. Conspiracy? I dunno.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I'm sure this guy is violating a couple patents :P. Hmm... Can you be sued for patent violation for non-commercial use? I wonder if he could be sued for releasing plans?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
How to become a SCO executive in 21 days?
Enjoying spam for dummies?
CowboyNeal's aerobics classes on DVD?
Robot hacker Trevor Blackwell explains how to build your own Segway-style balancing scooter. He says it's not that hard (but he already knows how to build walking robots).
In related news, NASA engineers explain how to build your own space shuttle. They say it's not that hard.
(Seriously though, the instructions given on Trevor Blackwell's site for building your home-brewed Segway are not much more complicated than what I did in EE labs at Berkeley.)
I know that hindsight is 20-20 but in light of the recent recall a lot of the opinions here seem pretty silly in retrospect.
Despite being able to build my own, I'm still impressed with the Segway(TM) and with the courage it takes to bring such a product to market. Like with cars, it's pretty easy to put together a motor and wheels and make it go. But building a safe, comfortable vehicle requires a huge amount of R&D, and it's very hard to be certain that such a thing is as safe as it can possibly be.
I'm more impressed with the arrogance of Camen, suggesting that entire cities are going to be redesigned because of his yuppie toy, than I am impressed with his courage. And considering that dangers have already been uncovered with batteries are low, I sincerely question how much R&D was sacrificed in order to get this product to market on time. It seems like testing it under low-battery conditions would be one of the first things you oughta test for a vehicle boasting automatic stabilization features.
And when you're the only company doing it, and when the product is cool enough to make good news fodder, you're guaranteed to get massive negative coverage and lawsuits when there are accidents.
Massive negative coverage, huh? If I hadn't been reading slashdot on Friday I would have never heard of this recall. And as far as the product being "cool enough to make good new fodder", let's not kid ourselves. The reason the media went so ape shit about this is because it's easier to report on new trinkets like this than on the growing national debt, even though the latter will likely have a much larger impact on our lives than the former.
This guy oughta edit his page and remove those comments since they look pretty silly nowdays.
GMD
watch this
In other news, President Bush declares Hurricane Isabel a terrorist attack, and delcares war on all of eastern Africa.
Shouldn't that be "Western Africa?" Jeez, now Bush is attacking the wrong targets.
I took off the wheels and the "sit" and used rubber footrests covered with canvas. I was going to call them "Chucks," but then "Lame Joke" is a much more technically accurate name.
[Reply to This]
Re: What the hell are you thinking? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday September 28, @02:25PM
A patent can prevent others from selling *OR* making a certain device. So it is actually not legal to build this, even if you have no intent to make money with it.
Read up on patent law.
yeah ill get right on building this after i build my other amazing transportation device, called the "bicycle" with a little practice using this you will never fall off, be able to go for more than an hour, go more than 12 mph and not look like the biggest deutsche in the world when riding one.
Is it because of this much hyped scooter....or is Dean Kamen responsible for killing your family?
Seriously, what's wrong with Dean Kamen?
All you'd have to do is connect the wheels to 'spires' coming out of the side of the vehicle, rather then to the center of the vehicle. Sort of like "|\_/|" rather then "|-|" (we'll see if slashdot lets this past the lameness filter..
It would make the thing rather funky looking though, and most of the stability comes from the software, so you don't really need big wheels unless you want to go over big bumps.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Go Whitefish!
I started from scratch and tried to build a better one, but I couldn't find the fancy gyros and electric motors used on the original. Funny thing though, it came out looking like a bicycle.
Couldn't someone create a cheap knockoff of the Segway by attaching a small shopping cart wheel to the back, and chucking all of the expensive gyros? They wouldn't even violate any Segway patents in the process.
In any event, $5,000 for a scooter is just sillyness (yes, it is just a scooter).
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
I couldn't find the shut-the-hell-up mode of operation for my ex-wife, so I'm hoping some girlfriend deprived /. writer can help me out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
You can sit down, they serve the same purpose, and are just as dorky. A fully loaded Segway takes up the same space as a Rascal anyway.
I liked this link on his site.
Toward a metric America. That is funny for so many reasons.
The best part of this was his honesty about how dangerous his model was to a real Segway, the failed model of the Lesson of Icarus, ... and the link to some guy who turned his Segway into a Roman Horseless Chariot. Yee-haw!
When the walking robot climb on and ride the scooter. Oh the irony of it!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
get real...spend the reasearch dollars into something which would benefit mankind...
how about more efficient windmill generator technology or ultra eficient gas motors used in hybrid motorized vehicles...
just what america needs.. something to help make you fatter and create more lawsuits.
I'd like mine to be in camo colour, with catterpillar tracks, armour plating, twin turbine engine and a machine gun!
Hate me!
Saw this on CNN the other day when they talked about the recall of the segways. Bush's segway wasn't turned on when he stepped onto it.
-
It's obviously not true. A bicycle is kept from tilting sideways by momentum, but it doesn't flip over because it is touching the ground in front or in back, far away from the center of gravity.
The amount of torque you would need to get the center of gravity on the other side of one of the wheels is huge, since there is a small angle between the center of gravity, the center of the wheels, and the direction you're going.
On the Segway, there is a 90 degree angle between those vectors, and you would need no force to 'unbalance' the segway. The reason the segway stays up is because the software controls the wheels and continually moves the center of gravity so that it stays balanced.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A lot of that cost is from getting it past the FDA.
I only said I wondered if he could be sued if he released the plans.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
That guy's name is Kamen
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Simple, as with the Segway, the iBot, is a neat idea, but with little commercial application.
UNLESS.
Unless you can count on the government buying them. That is the key to either one's long term success. Honestly, the Segway is neat, and interesting, but as an alternative transportation method it sucks.
It does work well for getting approved under all sorts of government programs, let alone it could eventually get forced upon insurance companies via the ADA.
On topic, what makes this guy's idea better is that it gives us, the tax payers, a cheaper way out should the need arise. If the iBot or Segway gain large acceptance on the government front;(hauling around all those lard asses - it was so bizarre to see the Atlanta demonstrations - all were over weight!); then a cheaper alternative could save us money.
Real innovation in transportation is creating something people will use, not something that looks neat.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
That device looks pretty cool. Strange how it needed approval from the FDA... But is it necessary? It seems like laws these days require people to make things more accessible to handicapped people anyway (fewer stairs + more elevators). Personally I'm waiting for my cheap robot-slave that will make me money.
Muahaha...
Reminds me of the saying "Point a finger and three get pointed back at you."
But in this case only one of those fingers need be a moderator...
Obveously he's trying to say the work he did in the EE labs at Berkeley was simple stuff not that he is some sort of brain...
Gezz I love how people think...
Microsoftie "Linux is Hard. It takes a computer expert to use it"
Posted on Slashdot "Hay the avrage Slashdotter uses Linux how hard can it be?"
Conclusion "Avrage Slashdot user is a computer expert"
Study done "Avrage Slashdot user is NOT a computer expert"
Conclusion "Avrage Slashdot user thinks he is smart becouse he uses Linux. A myth"
No Conclusion Linux isn't hard thats what was being said in the first place...
Half the population can't spell the other can't read...
(In case your wondering I'm in the "Can't Spell" catagory)
The few who can do both can't think.
Well, your mention of GWB busting on a Segway sent me straight to google in hopes of finding a photograph. Not only did I find a picture, but a series of pictures showing the fall a different points of the action:
http://www.bikexprt.com/witness/product/bushfal
Sadly, no face plant.
As everyone is aware, the Segway was developed on the same planet as SCO, and parts of the design have probably passed through linux boxes...which was stolen from people who sold their rights to another company which sold those rights to another company.
Anyway, this clearly makes the Segway the intellectual property of SCO. As you mention the Segway has some principles in common with the the bicycle...and we all no that the IP pirates Wilbur and Oliver Wright were bicycle mechanics. Any way, this is all confusing enough that if written in a legal brief, it is possible to baffle a court (especially if well placed lawyers get a cut in the suit). So, SCO Group of Lindon, Utah has decided to sue Boeing for violating its IP rights by building airplanes.
SCO Group's stock is expected to double on Monday when the new suit is made public...to help more people get in on this historic lawsuit, the insiders of SCO Group plan on dumping large amounts of their shares into the market following the press release.
Copy this device! It goes for about 20k... how many people do you think can really afford this thing? I know who can. Stephen Hawking got one of these i belive. So he made that all up about the Univers just to get money to buy this one, wow!
Er, probably. (Scroll down a bit.)
Its hanging from a cable, and seems to go nuts and tip over once it moves an inch or two. Am I missing something? Not as high tech as asimo... that's for sure!
Yea, the video is awesome. It looks like some stoned kid dancing for his own amusement. It sure is not as high tech as Asimo, but hey, my father told me that what's more important is process, not the result that comes after. It's a "home depot" walk-bot, but it may become something big and popular. I mean "maybe."
Obveously he's trying to say the work he did in the EE labs at Berkeley was simple stuff not that he is some sort of brain...
Oh, yeah. I get it. That must have been why he name-dropped Berekley, right? Because he was being humble.
Sheesh...
RoboteQ (the manufacturer of one of the parts) also produces parts for use in "battlebots". So, who wants to take first crack at the combination segway/battlebot?
Besides, having a flamethrower on your segway would really help convince people to get out of your way.
Dependable, Reliable Furnishings
Can't wait for the science fair's in school.
Use to be lots of rocktumblers, and electromagnets (nail with wire wrapped around it).
Now we get to see rich kiddies building Segways.
Sounds like something from the Jetsons.
So that medicare will pay for it for people it deems needs them.
Add a third wheel, you fucks >!!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
THE HTML FAILURE IS YOU!
The Segway seems overdesigned because, if it wasn't, people would have serious accidents with it frequently. This is independent of it being overpriced; there doesn't have to be that much electronic component cost in the thing. If it actually sold in volume, the price could be brought down to $2K or so without much trouble.
it is a scooter with wheels on the sides, the sides! man, don't you get it? its like a scooter, sure, but the wheels ar on the SIDES! so its not a scooter at all.
I can't wait for the new redesigned cities, I think I'll get me a condo.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
. . .then the terrorists have already won.
Search for "Ginger" (development name of the Segway), then "Scooter"
This guy oughta edit his page and remove those comments since they look pretty silly nowdays.
Yeah, hindsight is always 20/20. these comments here also look rather silly nowadays... (scroll down to section 5 for the juicy bits...). Read carefully, or you'll miss one of the double negations, and you'll find the text absolutely trivial. The irony of the text is that the author didn't foresee (at the time he wrote it) the full irony of the very phrase containing the word irony... (And yes, IIRC, that page stayed up until October... more than one full month after the event, and after featuring on cruel.com)
The commercial one has a lot of safety features, redundancy and fool-proofing. Mine has none whatsoever...With a scooter like this, if it stops working for any reason (software crash, hardware failure, low battery) you will fall, hard, and probably on your face. Imagine zipping along at 10 MPH, and suddenly the platform you're standing on stops dead. Oh, and there's a T-bar in front of you to trip you up if you start to run.
Ingenuous, but from the sounds of it, I'll pass...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
The terrorists won (in america) a long time ago. Knock a yank down and he stays down.
Kamen never said cities would be designed around the Segway, that was Jeff Bezos, of Amazon.
Please get your facts straight.
You got to love this. Here, DaHat tells me that Bezos made that claim. In the comment directly above, autopr0n claims it was Steve Jobs. Tell you what, guys, since this archived article from the New York Times credits that statement to Kamen, I'm gonna go with them. DaHat, since you are the one who is making a big stink about getting "facts straight", how about if you do a little looking around on behalf of all three of us and figure out what the answer is?
Actually, I really don't give a flying fuck whether those words came out of Kamen's mouth or not. Honestly, who really cares? Directly or indirectly, Kaman is responsible for the great hype surrounding this toy. You guys took one little thing out of my post and tried to use it to discredit everything else I said.
GMD
watch this
No, it means that you and I through our taxes will pay for them (if you pay US taxes anyway...) Seriously, if people really thought about every government expenditure as spending their own money, we would be much better off.
I think I'm going to get a taco...brb.
I'LL TAKE TWO!
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
In mean, FFS why put the wheels side by side and then include $4,300 worth of electronics to make it balance when you can put the wheels inline, save that cash and a load of weight but otherwise have identical performance *and* better brakes?
It's being stupid for stupid's sake.
Google found this for me in 0.1 seconds:
http://www.zapworld.com/xtreme.htm
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
At first, I just stood directly on the aluminum plate. When I went through some wet grass and then I tipped the handle fairly far forward to accelerate, I nearly slid off and had it run over my heels. So you definitely need some grippy coating. Masking tape works OK, but I'm looking for some nice adhesive-backed rubber.
Skateboard grip tape would be good for this.
Chip H.
No, really. It takes decades to rebuild small areas of cities and their basic design stays the same for centuries.
London, Paris, Rome etc are all based on cities of hundreds or thousands of years ago. The streets are the same, in the same place with the same or similar names.
We got a rash of "new towns" in the 50s-70s which are a disaster now, requiring a car to do the most trivial of things. They were designed for a specific technology you see.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It goes for about 20k... how many people do you think can really afford this thing?
Your insurance company can and will supply it if you really need it.
whoa dude... that is the ugliest robot i had ever seen. It's totally the kinda robot you don't wanna encounter in a dark alley somewhere.
Of course. If a doctor prescribes a wheelchair for a patient (and the iBot, unlike most wheelchairs, is prescription only), and the wheelchair collapses, or malfunctions, the patient could be harmed.
It's this same authority over "medical devices" that allows the FDA to certify heart-lung machines, stents, catheters, and a great many other medical tools.
stupid Dean Kamen, and his making better wheelchairs for the handicapped! Who would want to support that selfish asshole!
seriously, what's your problem?
What? Are you just trolling?
I can't even get the insurance companies to pay for my patient's medications or vital procedures... forget the neat wheelchair.
Davak
Does he include a PDF of the forms to fill out when it needs to be recalled?
Obveously he's trying to say the work he did in the EE labs at Berkeley was simple stuff not that he is some sort of brain...
;P
This is the correct interpretation of my comment. The introductory EE43 lab (which many people take, not just those in the EE or CS programs) had you build a tutebot using legos, a breadboard, and stuff like motors and wheels. When it hit a wall, it was to turn back up, turn, and go straight again. Given the wiring diagram and lego blueprints, a monkey could do it.
EE40, which is the I guess "harder" or "for-EE/CS students" version of EE42/43 had you build a similar bot but using a programmable logic chip instead of mechanical logic. Also not very difficult, though it did require more intelligence than arranging wires.
I'm sure some psychiatrist can argue those other posters were simply projecting their own inadequacies onto another.
... and you too could be re-called by the gov't.
"I'm not ashamed I can't function in society like I'm supposed to." - Paul Westerberg
...but I figured that /. would be a place where a great article like this would be appreciated and commented on. What do we get? Comments about patent infringement, possibility of being sued, price, and other silliness. I thought it was a great article with some neat engineering explanations and lots of food for thought! Are there actually any techies hanging out on /. any more?
he mentions the thought of moving the control column to the side. why not have one on each side? probably a more comfortable position, allows your arms to help more in handling shock to the spine from bumps, and it definitely gives you more freedom to compensate for any sudden stoppage which might throw you forward.
I agree that insurance companies are the devil incarnate. But sometimes they DO fess up when needed.
Family I know has 4 kids....3 of which have brittle bone disease. All 3 in heavy duty wheelchairs. Now...having a teeny bit of knowledge of their financial situation...I *know* that they didn't purchase them retail. Ergo....
i really don't understand this whole fascination with the segway, i can't think of any other product that generated as much buzz for no otherwise good reason as this.
Just tell me, in what way is a segway better than a Honda Ruckus for example? I, myself, if given a choice between a segway and a honda ruckus, i would definintely take the ruckus. First of all, it's well established technology, it'll fill up anywhere, and it'll take you a long way on a tank, and you can fix it almost wherever you want. It's not particularly noisy, not the modern machines. It's extremely reliable, i'd totally be willing to take one to commute to work and make it on time, around town and do some shopping, on a highway, up a mountain and into the wood, along a beach strip, or heck, i can even go on an around-the-world forest-gump-style trip on one, i swear, it's that reliable. It's also fast enough, and flexible, it'll negotiate almost any reasonable terrain. It's also seems more comfortable, you actually SIT DOWN on it rather than commute standing up. As for the segway, it's damn slow, i just find it bizarre that some people say they commute to work on one, and also for some reason i feel it'd emarrass me a lot to be seen on a segway. I also find the Ruckus cooler in a no-nonsense way.
The segway is just damn not practical as a commuting machine. I am yet to understand why postal workers or other public workers for examples were purchased segways rather than a honda ruckus which costs less than third the price. I realize that some people might argue that it's a machine that can be used inside buildings, but, i just think that's way too silly. Just walk dude, and if you have a problem with comfort get a pair of Birkenstocks. If you have a problem with walking then maybe you'll also likely to have a problem with standing up for the length of your journey. Can anyone give me a reason that makes sense why segways, at their current price, make any sense?
I am sure it must be a fad.
Dude, if it takes you that much space to try and retroactively explain yourself, that's a pretty reliable indicator that you're full of crap.
:P
It's OK. Even the best of us name drop during our lifetimes. Just be a man and admit it
"OK, I am in fact a silicon valley nerd, but I don't want everyone to know it."
Probably shouldn't have created a website, then?
Back in the late 80 when I was working in a NASA robotics research lab we were exploring applications of fuzzy logic and neural nets. Well, one of the problems that we were working with was the inverted pendulum problem. It is relatively easy to develop a neural net that can learn to balance a broomstick. Admittedly balancing a flexible body such as a human is a little more difficult, but not a great deal more difficult. The mechanism controlled just like the Segway, which ever way you pushed the broomstick was the direction of motion. This was not mounted on wheels but the principle is exactly the same.
If I were to design the Segway I would use 4 wheels for additional stability and have a roof to protect you from the elements. Hmm, actually I guess I have one of those parked right outside. I remember when IT was being so overhyped and it really turned me off when it finally was announced. I'm not saying that it doesn't have ANY practical applications but I thik for the most part it's just an expensive novelty item. What the world really needs is a self balancing unicycle, now THAT would be useful at least under the big top.
Personally I thought that Bush's face plant was a nice bit of foreshadowing.
Captain Wasabi
have to recall mine too? They just recalled :^)
the real Segway's because they (SURPRISE)
don't work when the battery runs down!
Yeah, and my car doesn't work when it runs
out of gasoline either...
...Robot hacker Trevor Blackwell's Segway has been recalled due to safety concerns. Details at 10.
Got any pointers to more information about this "Rascal" thing? Google turns up nothing relevant in the first 20 results.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Simple explanation: When lawyers are more powerful in the economy than engineers and technologists, engineers and technologists have to think like lawyers in order to survive, and this spills over into Slashdot. To take this power back, all you can do is complain to your representative, asking for a simpler legal code. You're not going to get it any time soon because complex laws are job security for the American Trial Lawyers Association, one of the most powerful lobby groups in Washington.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Ergo they beat up a family of handicapped children and stole their wheelchairs?
That's just sick...
if it stops working for any reason (software crash, hardware failure, low battery)
I wonder how long it took him to realize this compared to Segway?
Maybe what we really need to do is stop pining for innovative gadgets...they generally suck anyway.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
...what about a beowulf cluster of homebrew balancing machines! Dut dut DUT!
Yes the govt can't prosecute anyone for contravening patents.
One can only take on a private law suit, & the basic structure of a law suite for patent infringment is commercial, they just don't apply to end users knocking things together for themselves, well unless the end user is planing on using it commercially (like a post office building hundreds of them for it's postmen to use).
Afterall there's thousands of patents that get infringed every day by hobbyists in their sheds & garages
Kamen got it all wrong -- The segway should have been a replacement for sitting, just like that wheelchair gizmo he made. Imagine a moving seat taking the place of your sofa. Press a button to go to the fridge. Another to go to the movies (parking space in the theater). Hell, you could even build in a toilet and never leave your seat. Coooooool!
Walking [and bike riding] is not about 100% control, but learning to react to being out-of-control. A baby takes so long to learn to walk because they have to learn to fall a little. Riding a bike involves learning not just to pedal, but to "sway" back and forth with each motion..and the terrain.
Someone should build a ot with pairs of linear motors so that it can develop opposing "waves" of motion, against, and free power.
As for why...ever riden on a hand truck [two-wheeled box dolly]? They would seem to ride better with the handles in front! step on like a box, and you'll be just dying to take off! It's silly, but if you've seen someone do it, you've probably tried it too. It's a simple kid idea. you're not a big enough kid to be on /. if you didn't see the segway for what it was a long time ago!
They're basically those sit down wheelchairs that elderly use. The Segway is essentially the same thing, except you stand up. Quite frankly, the Segway is really just one step away from a Rascal.
The NeXT came with a demo program of a seal balancing a stick on it's nose. It was one dimensional and all it has to do is move the bottom of the stick under the top. That's all a Segway does.
If you were to take a force and push the top of the stick to the right, the seal would move right to stay under it. Thus you have motion by leaning in a direction.
The Segway is incredibly simple.
But given that you indicate which way want to travel it by unbalancing it, it is inherently unsafe. If the batteries die you will always fall off it. Either immediately in the case of the batteries dying in motion or as soon as you lean, in the case of batteries dying at a standstill.
In fact, the system has no way of resisting you if you want to go a direction. If you want to go forward it must either move forward to keep under you or else you both fall over.
In my opinion, the Segway is inherently flawed because of this. Add to that the flaw that it takes both hands to operate and you have a very fascinating device that has little or no practical use.
Dyson have about 4.2 Billion patents for their cyclonic vacuum cleaners. This slowed development of competing products - but it couldn't stop them because, quite simply, you can't patent physics.
All it takes is for a research lab to exploit the same physical effect in a slightly different form, unless the patent is rediculously generalised - i.e. "The use of cyclonic sucky effect in cleaning products" - which of course they aren't (on the whole).
Electrolux, Hoover, etc... all just went out and bought a hundred Dysons, tore them apart, and put them back together swapping as many components as they could without breaking the vaccuum. Easy! Oops - no - sorry - they carried out parallel novel research!! Silly me!
"Segway" is a severe misnomer for a vehicle where you have to stop to "refuel". One would expect that it should be possible to pick up a battery pack and hot-swap while riding along; and the battery pack itself should be capable of withstanding being thrown from the vehicle {well, what else are you going to do with it?} MBR>
Otherwise, it hardly deserves to be named after not stopping.
http://web.0sil8.com/episodes/megway/
behold the Megway.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
perhaps they should throw prof xavier in one of those for the next x-men movie.
then again, dark phoenix will likely blow it up anyway.
Google had a tough time finding the official site among pages spamming the index with repeated words.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The mpeg of the guy and his fake segway going up the pavement .... Clasic.....
No, thats something your average cyclist can't do. I know plenty who can sit at a dead stop, balanced on their bikes. But then, I hang out with bike couriers... so thats to be expected.
No I do look at it that way actually. It personally sickens me to see my motherinlaw take approx 1000 dollars a month in medicine that medicare and medicade pays for most of which she doesn't need. And shes not really disabled