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Segway Revolutionizes Polo
Mirkon writes "The Register is carrying a story on an example of how technology is making sports better: Segway Polo. The San Francisco Bay Area Segway Enthusiasts Group has instructions on how to build a mallet (PDF), and a video clip of Segway Polo in action (MOV). A revolutionary device, indeed."
For all you Segway lovers, hereis a torrent of the SegwayPolo movie.
Found this image on [H]ardOCP: off-road segway
;)
For those of you using lynx: it's a segway with huge spiked tires on a sled hitched to the back of a Hummer H2. Go figure.
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
I had a hard time getting my own segway. (the p version, the I version costs almost twice as much). Apparently amazon doesn't ship these things outside of the USA. Fortunately, a friend in the US helped out by buying the thing for me (and one for himself I might add) and have it shipped.
:-)
You don't want to know what it cost me to have it shipped. (Twice, once from amazon to my friend, and then from my friend to Europe)
I actually thought about setting up a business as a reseller of these things. Fortunately my girlfriend stopped me
Want to know why McDonalds accepts credit cards all of a sudden?
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Call me fussy, but I'd prefer unicycle hockey over that any day.
Unicycle hockey is much faster and more agile than that. There is an advantage in that you have both hands free for holding the stick which serves to make it less awkward looking.
Cheers,
Roger
Do you have any better hostages?
I am waiting for the lawnmower version, like those old push mowers. Now that would be cool!
I was under the impression that you can't fall off from a Segway.
At least 2 guys fell off in the movie clip!
I also note the helmet, although I can't decide whether it was to protect them from being RAN OVER by a Segway (be it their own, or their friend's), or from the evil looking mallets they were swinging with menace.
In high school my friends and I got bored and decided to start playing bike polo.
Materials required: Croquet mallet, Broomstick, Softball, Bike, Field.
Slap the broomstick onto the mallet head, grab some friends and find a field. Set up goals and start playing. The only rules are that you can't put your feet down unless you fall and you can't use your mallet to balance. Hours of fun for far less than the cost of a segway.
Find me in ~/.sig
I used to play what we termed "bike polo" with a bunch of guys who, for the most part, worked at a local bike shop. The rules were: you had to have a girls' bike frame (very low top tube) that was 18" or smaller, a banana seat, & the biggest handlebars you could find. You used a hockey stick to hit a lacrosse ball around a parking lot into the other team's net. Fair play to jam your hockey stick into an opponenet's spokes, fair play to check the ball carrier, no time outs. You couldn't score from the grass around the lot, but the ball was still in play.
The games usually ended when there was only one or 2 people on each team, and keep in mind that the people who played were between about 16 and 40, so they didn't fit on the bikes very well. It was so much fun to watch.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
I thought the most expensive parts of the Segway were its magnets for its motors, the batteries, and its gyros. Those are non-trivial parts which, under mass production, could become very cheap indeed.
If that's true, I imagine it will be like in-line skates. They seemed to explode in popularity 20 years after the patent was filed.
I wonder if a Segway could get by on one wheel... ? run two gyros in opposite directions and straddle the wheel. Alter the position of the gyros relative to the wheel to turn and depend on internal friction in the gyro to induce some angular force.
Hmmm... might be fun to build a model.
The difference is, those other status symbols are fancier versions of things that have a purpose. A Ferrari is a car, you can use it the same way you'd use any other car. A Rolex is a watch, you can use it the way you'd use any other watch, (including the Italian Rolexes that the spammers keep trying to sell me (hint Rolex is Swiss)).
A Segway, on the other hand, is not a fancier version of a useful thing. It's a status symbol with no real point. It's kinda neat to look at, and sorta fun to play with, but it's trying to fill a niche which basically doesn't exist.
I think the status symbol the segway is most similar to are those clacking metal beads that were all the rage for executive types a while back. Or they're like robot vacuums, or motorized shoe polishers. They're something that people like to pretend has a purpose, but that is about as good an investment as a lottery ticket.
Look, it's fune if you enjoy spending your money on these things. Just quit trying to convince the rest of us that they're anything more than a silly expensive toy.