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)."

Comments

Re:Oh, come on...

[MBCook]

Why don't you do a little more reading before trolling (which, IMHO, you're doing). First of all, I think that guy's statements still stand, getting the Segway to market was still quiet an achievement.

That said, just look under the heading "Limits":

Update: apparently Segway just recalled all their scooters to fix a similar problem: it can't handle hitting a bump with low batteries.

Balancing depends on being able to keep the wheels under the center of gravity. If you're going fast and then run into something like a ramp or speed bump, it may require a lot of power for a short time to keep the wheels going up the ramp. Basically, it needs enough power available to provide maximum torque (enough to sustain speed up a 45 degree ramp) at the current speed. As batteries get low and motors get warm, the amount of available torque goes down. It's hard to predict exactly when it doesn't have enough to run safely. There's certainly a large gap between when it couldn't handle hitting a speed bump at 5 MPH and when the batteries actually run down. It would be a formidable task to develop the map of battery & motor condition to maximum safe speed, and you'd probably end up shutting it down well before the batteries were exhausted.

There is another paragraph below that with even more info. Reading the first 3 paragraphs does not count as reading the article, you know.