Ars Technica Builds Make Magazine's Steadicam

An anonymous reader writes "Make magazine has been out for a little over a month now and was given high marks in a Slashdot review. Ars Technica has taken their review one step further by building the $14 steadicam project and testing it out. (be sure to check out the QuickTime video at the end to see their results...)"

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Re:As expected?

[Dun Malg]

One could easily add some small gyros to a handheld steadicam design and still come out fairly inexpensive. Take three 6v electric motors and a 6v battery. Add a wheel on the end of each motor, and mount them so that the wheels spin in three planes. Add weights to the wheels to balance them. Continue adding weights until you have enough stabilization. Place this apparatus in a padded box to keep it quiet, and mount the box.

Since all you really need to dampen is movement along the pitch and roll axes, a single gyroscope with the axis mounted vertically would be adequate. And rather than trying to build and balance your own, you'd do well to save yourself the headache and pick up a nice surplus military missile guidance gyroscope, like this. Knock that spinner out of its gimbals and I bet it'd be just right...