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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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
A Segway weighs 38 kg. It's a bit more efficient than even the most spartan car.
Besides, shouldn't those eggheads wasting time on ultra-efficient gas engines be finding a cure for cancer, instead?
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.
Hah, yeah, that's it. BTW, you're not going to be sued for patent infringement if you build a product for your own use. Would it be illegal? Probably, but IF you're building a product that's been product IMPROVED upon an earlier patent, you have the ability to patent that.
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.
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.
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
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.
"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...
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?
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?
Yeah, yeah. The new postal service experiment with Segway mounted carriers (plus 125 lb bag) will surely displace the tens of thousands of bicycle mounted carriers.
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
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!
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!
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
So you want /. to be full of posts saying "Neat engineerying - this is trjue nerd cool". Because that is what I thought. But I didn't post it, because it is Redundant. The article really says everything there is to be said. I admired it but I didn't have anything to add. Should I post?
/. editors more about how many people read and/or liked the articles than the number of posts. At the moment, a niche interest post that produces a shouting match between half a dozen posters looks more interesting that a wide interest post that averybody just thinks very interesting.
Maybe we want an open ended mod-point system for the original articles. That would actually tell
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
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?
> Build in something to turn it off when it's low on power so you don't fall over.
Great, except that if you turn it off... you fall over. The self-balancing does not work without power.
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