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Build Your Own Self-Balancing Unicycle
CaptainKaos[DOH!] writes "Robot hacker Trevor Blackwell is at it again, this time with a self-balancing Eunicycle. Blackwell writes, 'Some time ago I built a self-balancing two-wheeled scooter. Since then I realized that two wheels are redundant, and only a single wheel is needed to make a ridable vehicle. A vehicle with a single wheel is much smaller and lighter. It weighs under 30 lbs and is easily carried with one hand when going up stairs or on public transportation.' Trevor's previous 'Segway' type two-wheeler was mentioned on Slashdot."
One wheel good, two wheels bad!
...will be half as useful, and still cost $5k...
Why not just buy a Segway? It looks so much cooler :)
You can find a torrent for the video here: Park-all.lowbw.mpg.torrent
I misread that as a eunuchcycle. clicky
When he gomes out with a robot with out wheels, then I will be impressed. (It also has to move, no cheating.) Until then, I'm going to be impressed with this and wishing that I had about $1000 to build one of these....
I see he is giving away all necessary design plans and such. I assume that is because if he were to charge for it he would be sued into oblivion for patenet violations... small world.
Seems to me the name is a bit too close to "Eunuchcycle", which might be more appropriate if you were to sit down on it too hard..
"I have a strong bias towards building products that people buy for their own use." -Trevor
I too support people killing themselves. But, really - couldn't we find a more effective method?
But, let me quote from the page
While the 2-wheeled scooter is easy to ride (I've let maybe 100 people ride it with few problems) the Eunicycle takes a good deal of practice. You don't want to be learning how to control such a vehicle at the same time as debugging it, so you really need to learn to ride a regular unicycle first.
Seems to me the title of this story is a bit misleading....
John_Allen_Mohammed
Besides the crotch-punishing bicycle seat, you have to ride with your arms out beside you. Sure, that's great for exercise freaks, but what about us lazy folk? Segway?
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
So, when does the 0 wheel version come out? But to be more serious...very, very cool.
Ubiquitously - A Ubiquity Developer Community
A self-balancing power unicycle.
So THAT's what the maintenance crew / army was riding (on the under-road access paths) in Heinlein's _The Roads Must Roll_.
Maybe RH can stop spinning in his grave now that tech is catching up to his earliest stories.
Good work, Trevor!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Here's another person with "too much time on their hands." The yuppie sophisticates will no doubt complain that people who invent "have no life" and really should be sitting in their $28,000 bought-on-credit living room watching celebrity bug-eating in high definition surround sound. [/sarcasm]
Then everyone else will bitch and gripe because the new invention didn't live up to the media hype and dismiss it all as the equivalent of a circus act. The fact they made it a circus act will, of course, be forgotten in time for the next "you could have this if you had a job" advertisement for something else to buy on credit.
People who spend their time doing anything except shoveling money into the local yuppie grill or sipping white wine while they watch prime time commercials occasionally interrupted by a screaming carnival barker are routinely criticized by our society because society has nothing but contempt for imagination and vision, unless it involves some dramatic amount of money.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Aah life is good.
ooh! and a bag of groceries in one hand, a cell phone in the other, a camel-back full of coffee.
Now that's convenience!
man, I feel like mold.
Is it just me or the picture reveals that this guys should try to go for a self-balancing DIET instead.
He looks kinda chunky and that could be far more dangerous than his current creation....
Yeah man....I've realized something....those 4 wheeled busses are a pain to ride in. Can't get any damned seats anywhere.
I need something smaller and lighter...like a 1 wheeled bus. That'll surely be painless to ride in and easy to carry around.
Mod +5 beers *hic8
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I've been wanting a unicycle lately - no one seems to want to get me one for christmas or birthday. Hm, maybe I'll just build on of these.
That's the single funniest video I've seen all day. I love the nervous look on his face when he goes by the camera.
Trevor mentions that you control speed by leaning forward/backward and steer by twisting your body. This is appropriate for low speeds.
But as with a bicycle or motor cycle, at higher speeds you can steer by leaning. For instance:
- Lean right.
- Force on the axle is translated to motion 90 degrees offset in the wheel's direction of rotation, causing the wheel to gradually precess to the right, gradually turning the vehicle.
Twisting continues to work but differently - in reverse and one stage of integration removed:
- Gently push forward on the right handlebar, as if turning left. (There should be a body-twisting motion to produce an equivalent on the unicycle.)
- Force on the axle is translated to motion 90 degrees offset in the wheel's direction of rotation, causing the wheel to gradually precess to lean progressively more to the right. (Stop pushing the handlebars when you're tilted as much as you want.)
- Tilting the wheel moves the center of gravity to the right, causing the vehicle and rider's weight to apply a force on the axle, as with the "lean right" case above.
- When you've turned far enough, gently push forward on the LEFT handlebar (or do the opposite body-twist) to undo the lean.
This only works at moderate-to-high speeds, when the gyroscopic effect is adequate. And it works at much lower speeds on a motorcycle than a bicycle due to the greater gyroscopic effect from the heavy wheels. (It's hard to get a bike going fast enough to do this.)
Try it out on a motorcycle: Find a nice flat, straight, country road with good pavement and no traffic. Get moving maybe 25 MPH, and balanced well enough that you can open your hand around the handgrip and steer by leaning. Once you've got that working, try just barely touching the back of one handle to push it forward.
Once you get the hang of it you can use it to perform extremely abrupt turns on the 'cycle. A stiff push causes the cycle to suddenly drop into a steep bank and begin a tight turn. A stiff push the other way pops it back upright and traveling straight. The banking is just right to keep you stuck to your seat and turning at a constant rate while applying no twisting force to the handlebars. Very relaxed while performing extreme manouvers, since the only muscular effort is used when you CHANGE your RATE OF TURN. (But don't overdoit and break traction or you'll go down.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That is the gayest thing I have seen in a long time.
It looks like this guy is crapping out a bicycle.
Hehe... that sort of reminds me of the method of transport used by one of the characters in the B.C. cartoon series. (Anyone here know what I'm referring to?)
It's name suggests that it turns the riders into eunochs! ouch :(
30 lbs is light? Any decent 2-wheel road bike can be found at under 25lbs while a mountain bike is around 28.
cool--what this guy has built is similar in nature to the 'bombardier embrio' concept motorbike.
articles with pics here and here
no it dosent
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
I use "Robot Power" speed controllers and "Battlepack" batteries in several of my bots...
...to mount the machine guns and anti-tank bombs.
Venus Wars
While the 2-wheeled scooter is easy to ride (I've let maybe 100 people ride it with few problems) the Eunicycle takes a good deal of practice. You don't want to be learning how to control such a vehicle at the same time as debugging it, so you really need to learn to ride a regular unicycle first.
Once you've learned to ride a unicyle competently, why not just ride it. It's are a lot cheaper and lighter than the Eunicycle.
This dosen't sound compable to a Segway at all. I thought the point of the Segway was that the lack of a learning curve. Eliminate that and you may as well use simpler machines like skates and unicycle.
Oh, and your feet should not hurt from skating. If they do, either your skates don't fit or your are doing it wrong.
yes, i think you're referring to a character from "BC"--currently running here
AHH!
...finally I won't get so tired looking for some mussels outside my cave!
If you read the article, you will see that this is more of a semi-Segway. It is *NOT* self-balancing. It's still a unicycle, and you still need to know how to ride a unicycle and keep your balance.
What this does do is use a gyroscope and sensor to detect when the rider leans forward or backwards and then accelerates or decelerate the wheel.
It's still a really neat contraption, though.
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
Try to think outside the box. Imagine the practical joke potential alone: Add another magmotor and a circular saw blade and voilà! now it's a Eunuchcycle.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
I'm sorry, are you trying to tell motorcyclists how to turn a bike? I'm guessing you've never ridden.
Every biker on the road more than a month knows about this effect, and doesn't even think about it when riding, it becomes second nature.
You're going on like you've uncovered some wonderful new phenomenon. Just say "countersteering" and be done with it.
I went to a school with a very significant unicycle population. It was by far the worst thing about going to that school. All the dorks thinking they were somehow cool by riding around on unicycles! These were the nerdiest of the nerds, the dorkiest dorks in a school full of geeks, nerds, and dorks. I don't claim to be "normal" but having these losers around was actually embarrassing to the rest of us.
<shudder> This story just brought back all the hideous memories... excuse me while I go and try to scrub my brain.
EOM
DUe t a flaw in the Bittorrent protocol we have been able to swap the content of the file without everyone downloading it knowing until they try to access it!
Wow, what a terrible name. I'd rather not ride a Eunich-cycle, thank you very much! The worst part is that it's probably an accurate description of what happens when there's a firmware glitch! Ouch! :)
Good news: no longer difficult to ride a unicycle.
Bad news: riding a unicycle still makes you look like a dork.
I too support people killing themselves. But, really - couldn't we find a more effective method?
Well, when it comes to unicycle-related methods of facilitating suicide,
Microsoft's way ahead of Trevor. Now THAT's innovation!
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Visualize Whirled P.'s
He needs to talk to Bombardier about their Embrio project - a supercool motorcycle-like unicicle.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:4K9GC46wUkAJ:tl b.org/eunicycle.html+&hl=en
Google Cache
Let's analyse this "You fail it!" post:
- No constructive criticism; why did the poster fail it? Remember, these people are idiots. You must spell out for them exactly what they failed. Strike one against the "you fail it" post.
- You didn't change the subject. Your post will be modded down into oblivion along with your parent. I read at -1 and would rather not have to click on your reply to know that, thankfully, this miserable first-post attempter has been put in his place. Strike two against the "you fail it" post.
- You didn't use the word fuck. Strike three against the "you fail it" post.
Three strikes and You Mother Fucking Fail It.
- Bombardier's Hot Wheel On November 12th, 2003 with 358 comments
and its obligatory dupe about two weeks later (things moved slower back then):- Bombardier's Embrio: Sexier Segway? On November 30th, 2003 with 339 comments
From Bombardier itself, here is their press release from July 9, 2003:Here's the mirrordot link: http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/8b06e35ecdf9d65de a75faf13d33d4e2/index.html
Bran muffins and whiskey.
No it isn't. It's basically the way to turn sharply at any sort of decent speed. Nor is it necessarily a gyroscopic effect. See Bicycling Street Smarts.
Now, IT is easily operated using four flexigrip handles. Two of them are on each side. Left side for throttle, right side for steering. The third flexigrip is gently inserted into the anus, to keep the driver in place...there we go. Now, the final flexigrip is directly in front of the driver so that its small switches can be operaterd with the mouth, as such. Put the four together and we're ready to go.
But he basically built another expensive stick balancer? There's a builtin package in matlab that does the same thing, even interfacing with hardware via serial or parallel ports. btw.. why are the handlebars necessary at all?
Turning by leaning does require gyroscopic force, but not in the way you describe. It is required to allow you to change your center of gravity by leaning. On a bike with no centrifugal force (a stopped bike), you cannot change your center of gravity by just leaning without turning the handlebars. If you could, it would be easy to sit upright on a stopped bike.
When gyroscopic force enters the equation, it does allow you to change your center of gravity by merely leaning your body. Once you lean to the right and move your center of gravity to the right, you start falling over to the right. The reason you don't fall over completely is that the wheel also turns to the right of its own accord, which turns you and brings it back under the moved center of gravity. But the main reason for the turning not gyroscopic force; the real reason is the fact that the turning axis for the front wheel is not vertical. This means that when the bike is leaning to the right, the front wheel has a natural tendancy to turn right, even when stationary. Imagine a bike on its kickstand; the wheel is always turned in the direction of the lean, right? That's not a coincidence. This is the reason why you will never see a bike with a straight vertical rod connecting the front wheel to the handlebars. (or if you do see one, it will be quite hard to ride, and look stupid to boot...) Gyroscopic force also has an effect here, but it is not the main player.
I found a cool site that explains it all: Motorcycle stability and steering.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
No one has yet referenced the cave man comic BC and his often riding around on his one wheel.
MadOgre.com
I knew him a bit during the Viaweb, Yahoo! Store days. Saw a lot of stuff he wrote too. A real genius. Really nice guy too.
I wish I could build a jet engine in my garage without blowing myself up.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
This version may only have one wheel but it has 3 mouse buttons!
Yep, linked site now thoroughly Slashdotted.
When will someone finally invent self (load-)balancing Web servers?
I wonder if you could do with less than two per site...
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
You should be able to do this already, without any aditional software.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What the fuck are you talking about?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Seems like he's got the backward/forward stabilizing working. It's that pesky side to side thing that might garner a need for a helmet. Maybe his next project might be a self-balancing Pilates ball!
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
(But don't overdoit and break traction or you'll go down.)
Offtopic (for the initial message, not the thread):
Do you have a tried and true method for knowing how much is too much (or more specifically, how much is just short of too much)? I've been riding for 4 years and have about 10,000 miles behind me, but still feel like I'm very far short of the maximum force I can safely apply to the bars to swerve. I'd like to get to know the limit better so I can use it if I need it.
If it matters, I ride an FJR1300.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
It seem to me that the website is now another victim of the Slashdot effect...
At a public demonstration of the iBot wheelchair that came before the segway. I'm said "can you do this with one wheel?" One of the people standing around watching the iBot heard this and called me a jackass!! "Two Wheels is enough, why would you want one you JACKASS"
That... was incoherant. Like Anti-Glue.
Does it really count as a unicycle if the wheel is wider than 10 bike tires?
The tried and true method is to go to a closed course track and go progressively faster each lap until you start slipping to the outside of the the turn. There isn't any other good way, and even that one fails when road surface conditions are factored in.
The best thing to do is to ride within your confidence limits - do not ride beyond where you are confident unless it is essentially a closed track with known present conditions (such as if you've been up and down the same rural road 10 times that day and haven't seen another car or any oil slicks, wet spots, gravel, etc.).
And, of course, wear at least leather boots, jacket, and gloves and denim pants (leather pants are preferred) and a good full-face helmet at all times.
In time, you'll learn the limits of both yourself and your bike. On a dry asphalt road with new tires on the bike, the chances are good that the limit is not one of traction but geometry. For instance, I have never had a bike go out from underneath me, but I do have a pair of motorcycle boots with beveled outside edges from turning the bike hard enough to scrape my feet on the asphalt at 100mph.
Lean forward or lean back for controlling speed is probably patented by Segway. I bet there's a lawsuit. And who do you think has more money?
In fact, using a gyroscope of any kind to keep a wheeled vehicle balanced is probably patented by Segway. The patent office certainly wouldn't deny such a patent.
-- No sig for you!
This article on counter-steering is easier to follow, I think. The picture helps. ;)
Life imitates art... cartoon art that is. Wonder if Johnny Hart gets any credit? Too bad the link was /. already. I'd like to buld one then go look for Cute Chick.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Linky
The ______ Agenda
that's funny, in both the C64 game and in the comic strip, there is a dude who goes around on one wheel--is the game based upon the comic strip?
i'm a bit unclear what you're getting at, because you keep saying bicycle and bike, yet you link to an article about motorcycle stability.
to my knowledge, one does not countersteer a bicycle, at least not below speeds of say 60mph.
motorcycle countersteering works at moderate (and faster) speeds because of the countersteering on the CLIPONS (handlebars), not because of the rider leaning, or center of gravity of the rider. that isnt to say at lower speeds that rider lean cannot influence the lean angle of the motorcycle.. however, at anything about 40mph or so, rider lean is essentially worthless to affect the lean angle of the vehicle. Keith code has proven this by welding the steering to a fixed straight position on one of his track bikes and inviting disbelievers to ride it on a track in a straight line at speed, lean as hard as they can, and the bike continues to go straight. I'm sure leaning on bicycles works much better, as they are slower and lighter, but leaning on motorcycles at any sufficient speed, is more an excercise in effective rider positioning than it is shifting the CG of the bike, and in fact it wasnt untill the last half of the 20th century that racers even leaned off the bike into turns.
Segways and this eunicycle are not destined to ever be a common mode of transport. You NEED TWO WHEELS, not side by side, but one in front of the other.
A single axle conveyance will tend to tip forward when stopped quickly, or flop backwards if accelerated too quickly. These tendencies cannot be overcome without some ground contact device besides the drive wheel, even if you ride inside its perimeter. Given current technology it would have to be a wheel or roller of some kind.
Prove me wrong
UK visitors may quite agree with me that this guy looks like he's been ripped straight out of the league of gentlemen (ARE YOU LOCAL?!)
5 de a75faf13d33d4e2/Park1.jpg
http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/8b06e35ecdf9d6
Simulator available here.
before he makes that difficult transition from 1 wheel to 0 wheels.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
So when is someone going to come up with a self righting pogo stick? Now THAT would probably get some serious funding from the insurance industry!
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Actually unicycles are amazing. They're compact. You can carry them anywhere, even in restaurants, so you never have to chain them up (and risk them being stolen) and no bus or taxi driver will give you a hard time for bringing one along. Unlike bikes, you can actually play sports, like unicycle basketball and unicycle jousting. You have the flexibility and freedom of walking, but the freedom of biking. Switching between walking and biking is dead simple, simply adjust your balance forward and fall on your feed. BTW, rarely fall off of unicycles and even if you do, you always fall forward flat on you feet. They're incredibly safe.
_ monocycle.html
A device like this would be great for the average citizen.
There are two problems with the unicycle, which is why I don't ride anymore:
1) They attract crowds, expecially children. If you're shy, don't get one.
2) You're placing all your weight on your body's weight on your groin area and after a while, it does begin to hurt. You can try padded underwear and other thing, but that's an inconvenience. From what I've read, there's a link between mountain biking and low fertility. If that's the case, the risk factors are greater for unicycles.
Point (1) would disappear if the unicycle became more popular (and it wasn't just used in circus attractions). But point (2) is a design flaw. There must be a way of distributing your weight to other parts of your body. If this problem is solved, the uniycle could become the rollerblades of tomorrow.
BTW, for those who are interested, there are multiwheeled unicycles:
http://www.unicycling.com/garage/multi.htm
and as a sidenote, it is possible to put the rider inside the wheel and have a monocycle:
http://www.americanroadshop.com/The_Monocycle/the
Well, that's really impressive.
I wonder why the MP/RIAA don't just do that for the shared movies/music.
When I'm sitting on top of a 500 pound device moving faster than I can run I don't want to attempt "extreme manuevers."
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
/. inserts spaces into long strings of text. There is a space in both of the links as posted. They will not work unless you take them out. Your link worked because you used it before posting, without the space.
e a75faf13d33d4e2/index.html
Click on this link instead of doing the copy-and-paste thing:
http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/8b06e35ecdf9d65d
There's stuff below the Submit button (hell, there's even a Preview button to its right), some of it is Really Useful: "Allowed HTML", "URLs" and "Important Stuff".
Tag lost or not installed.
According to the article itself, it *is* self-balancing. Here are some quotes:
Have you ever ridden a Segway? I got to ride one for ten minutes and after about seven my knees and ankles got pretty stiff.
This is an implementation of the unicycles from Venus Wars.
The cycles from the racing game at the beginning of the movie are a dead ringer for the Embrio, but I couldn't find pics of those.
[...] however, at anything about 40mph or so, rider lean is essentially worthless to affect the lean angle of the vehicle. Keith code has proven this by welding the steering to a fixed straight position on one of his track bikes and inviting disbelievers to ride it on a track in a straight line at speed, lean as hard as they can, and the bike continues to go straight.
Wrong test.
The wheel must be free to swivel in response to the gyroscopic forces to let the bike turn. The small gyroscopic force turns the wheel with respect to the frame, while the turned wheel turns the bike. Welding it to the bike completely overcomes this effect, and the gyroscopic effect simply stresses the forks, which leaves the wheel with miniscule offset.
The right test is to take your hands off the grips.
Of course it doesn't tell you whether the wheel is turning due to a gyroscopic effect or something else. But the point is that leaning turns the wheel and the angled wheel turns the bike.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Talk about bitching and griping LOL
hint: most cartoon robots have only 1 wheel. not important, but we're nerds!
http://www.jackiechabanais.com/le_monoroue.htm/
exist since 1989, not a unicycle, but a "uniquad" !
i wouldn't be worried about it's safety except that there is a long standing tradition that people who make fools of themselves are abused, and that could lead to some harm.
Get your torrents...