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Build Your Own Monowheel
glengineer writes "Just when you thought it was safe to buy a Segway, Popular Sci has an article on the Monster Monowheel, an 1,100 pound single wheel 'scooter'. From the article: '...works on the hamster-in-a-wheel principle: Move a wheel's center of gravity forward and the wheel turns.' It has an 80cc four-stroke Honda scooter engine and 80 pounds of lead for ballast. Scary part: the driver's seat is in the very front, and the seat scrapes the ground when braking really hard." The builder's website is theriotwheel.com.
... and since the tyre profile looks quite rectangular I guess it's "wheely" hard to steer ;-)
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Someone linked to this when we had the article about the Bombardier Embrio, another cool concept employing segway-type gyroscopic action.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
... is that they have a version that is licensed as a motorvehicle in California.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
I'm not so sure that it's a good idea to ride a vehicle that, if it fails at high speed, will run the driver over. All it takes is for something to seize up a little bit.
...
Can I get an Envirofriendly Gas Hybrid Model in Candy Apple Red?
and does it have an iPod hookup?
When I read the summary, I thought "Oh, like the one on Monster Garage". For those of you who didn't see the one they featured (briefly), there was a monowheel with a Caddilac engine, and the rider rode on the inside... at high speeds it was unstable until the designer added Stabilizing fins...
But, for those of you who don't RTFA: You ride in FRONT of the wheel. It's *really* fuggin' cool looking.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Scary part: the driver's seat is in the very front, and the seat scrapes the ground when braking really hard.
In other words, Ford owners will feel right at home.
Check out www.zekewheel.com too, if you want a non-motorized wheel to ride inside of downhill.
Just check this site out where a bunch of harley riding bikers have created their own monowheel thingy.
Automobile Mag
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Particularly the labeling of the rider as - "Dummy". I may have to agree with that assessment ;-)
The local segway owners will be soo jelous.
The most obvious use for this vehicle is to run over those snotty people using Segways. Of course, I guess you'd have to back up over them.
Personally I think the whole concept of that is really quite cool, that said, I don't think it's place is on the road with other motorists, maybe only on a race track.
If this goes south on him/her, it has got to make one of the best "Whackety-splat-whackety-splat" sounds the world has ever heard. 1,100 pounds and stabilized on the horizontal axis by only 65 pounds of gyros? If you have ever seen a gyro fail at high speed, well, uh, can you say mincemeat?
Doesn't this remind anyone of Axel from Twisted Metal? You have a huge wheel and a shirtless guy riding it. Mmmm, I can imagine the fiery explosions that will ensue.
Clown technology has really come a long way
There's a vehicle out there that really IS a monowheel -- it has no axle at all. It's a one-wheeled motorcycle with the driver inside the wheel...I've seen it demonstrated at motorcycle shows. The frame, holding the seat and engine, runs on a circular steel monorail with a tire around the outside of it, about 6 feet in diameter.
It's also a very retro-looking thing, built sometime around the early Thirties.
rj
You must be new here...
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
Thats what i thought at first too, kinda dissapointed. Although the one on monster garage reminded me waaay to much of the "It" on south park... Linky
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This is an improved version of what we saw in South Park. There is no steering lever to be inserted into the rider's mouth. The other lever is still being used I think, as in Mr. Garrison's design.
In Illinois the Tollway Authority charges 'per axle'
I wonder if this would be free?
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I never thought that. Well, I started to, once, and immediately preemptievly kicked my own ass.
All the safety of a poorly-made, precarious go-cart, but with the weight and fuel economy of a small car.
True story.
I had a chance to test drive a monowheel last summer. The first time I had trouble learning how to steer all over again, Because of the high center of balance (hint: it's just below the line of radial symmetry), you must be very careful while turning to avoid tipping the vehicle over! This is especially tricky because slowing down for a turn results in gerbilling (see below for a definition) where the driver is swung up from the base of the vehicle, further raising the center of gravity at a time when you need it as low as possible. Fortunately, the second time I mastered the trick of bringing the vehicle to a near stop in order to make sharp corner turns. I've (fortunately!) had several opportunities to drive one since then and my skills have improved.
For those interested, monowheel vehicles have a vocabularity of their own. For example, gerbilling is when a rider rotates around inside a monowheel due to a sudden force (such as when the wheel stops), much like what happens when a rodent stops running in an exercise wheel. Another loss of rotational control is due to the snowball effect. Snowballing is when a monowheel develops a coating of snow while rolling in much the same way you might build up layers on a snowball by rolling it. Be very careful when driving these things during winter! Monowheels are very efficient vehicles and even when driven on nearly flat ground-- even a small gradient can lead to rolling out of control.
Monowheels will never be practical vehicles. However, as recreation vehicles, they are quite fun. They're a ride, literally. There's nothing quite like steering around in one of them and feeling the unique forces that can only be felt inside of a big moving wheel. I can tell you personally that gerbilling and snowballing are both enjoyable activities assuming you take the right precautions.
Scary part: the driver's seat is in the very front, and the seat scrapes the ground when braking really hard.
Well, it seems two definitions of the term "tire tracks" will finally meet...
This thing is the Lawn Dart of tomorrow.
I can't remember the specific issue, but there was an article in Car and Driver some time in the last year or two where a guy built a monowheel (actually a series of them) where the driver and motor set -inside- the diameter of the wheel. I seem to remember all of them had the motor ahead of the driver, and the whole thing running on some kind of big bearing structure. He sold them in kit form for about $8000 as I remember.
/ mo torwhl/motorwhl.htm
The killer was the Monster version that had one of those tiny Buick V8's driving it. From what I remember of the article, he bailed it at something like 50 once...
There have been a LOT of these things built over the years. Check out:
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT
Now, as for this specific machine . . . I'm not sure I want my ass hanging out in FRONT of the rest of my vehicle like that. A motorcycle is bad enough with only a little overhang between you and the rest of the world. This thing just seems suicidal...
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
One episode of Junkyard Wars (Scrapheap Challenge its original UK title) was to make the teams BUILD a monowheel and race it.
Their designs were based on the rider being inside the wheel. Picture a round cage with a seat. The seat is off-center so that it is near the bottom of the inside of the wheel. Thus the rider's weight is not in the center of mass (this is deliberate). When you accellerate the wheel, the torque swings the inner cage forward, making the rider's swing to the front, and when you apply the brake, the rider is swung backward. This is nicely stable because this is slightly countered by the tendency of the rider to get "left behind" when the vehicle accellerates, or get "thrown" to the front when it decellerates.
One effect of this is that the maximum amount of accelleration or decelleration force is mostly a function of the rider's mass. If the vehicle is accellerating, then the rider is perpetually "falling" from the front down to the bottom, and this "falling" force translates into the Newtonian
equal and opposite reaction" against the engine spinning the wheel. (Without this, the wheel might stay put on the pavement while the inner cage spins around.) So, the fatter the rider, the more push the vehicle can have (but, of course, the more push it *needs*, so I don't know if this is really helpful or not).
Anyway, it was a cool episode right up to the moment they started actually trying to race the vehicles. Then it was comically SLOW. I think the teams actually made good vehicles, but they didn't have the driver skill to use them, and so they were too frightened to make them go. I suspect it was something akin to trying to use a unicycle.
The vehicle is steered by the leaning of the driver, and it balances a bit like a unicycle.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Where are the front and rear flexigrip handles?
I would much much rather be on the road with bikers and truckers than the average joe/jane.
Doesn't it just come down to `people suck,' though? If everyone drove a motorcycle, then the average motorcyclist would be completely clueless.
[Best new auto safety feature: a giant spike in the middle of the steering wheel -- just watch how carefully people drive!]
We live, as we dream -- alone....