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Honda's Answer To the Segway
lcreech writes with an excerpt from the Daily Mail's description of a new Segway-style one-person vehicle being shown off by Honda: "The vehicle looks like a very modern unicycle and to ride it you simply lean your weight in the direction you want to go, whether that's forward, backwards or even sideways. It maintains its own balance travelling up to 3.7MPH. Not very fast."
Lets be happy that we're probably the last generation that can watch how the beautiful girls walk on street in their red dresses and nice legs and ass. Sooner or later this will be reality, in a bad and a good way. While convenience is nice, it has bad sides too.
That being said, I would so use this. Can I get a comfortable computer chair version too, so I can get a beer easily (and one of those japanese beer serving machines please )
No handlebars. Less speed than a Segway. Lame.
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Until I get this I'm not satisfied.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Somehow, I am thinking that the people who would use this would not be capable of walking faster.
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If you're intrepid enough to sit on a motorized unicycle, automated stabilizers aside, you're very likely able and willing to walk 4mph. So, it's no surprise they don't plan on bringing it to market.
However, nice proof of concept as a base for robots.
Damn those pesky terrorists
This place: http://focusdesigns.com/ has a working version that you can buy today, apparently. It's also more than twice as fast at 10 MPH.
Actually, a lot of people have done this before. Just google "self balancing unicycle" or "powered unicycle".
Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
that was my first thought... an awesome office chair.
Second thought was that it will work some muscles that aren't normally used.. with all that leaning moving and stuff...
This is just a proof of concept project. Honda encourages engineers to pursue "pet" projects in mobility. The ones with promise are given more resources. Sometimes they even become actual products, like Honda Jet.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Where I live there is a disturbing number of scooters for the grossly obese - those people who are so corpulent that even walking is beyond them. Whenever I see one, I get to thinking that the only reason why Segways haven't brought on the chubpocalypse is because they were priced too high for lower income people (who have the highest rate of obesity) to afford.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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While in general this thing is completely pointless, the way the wheel itself works is really cool. It's composed of cylinders which form the ring for the main wheel but allow sideways movement. Leave it up to the Japanese to dream up the most useless application for advanced technology, but it's cool that they're exploring unconventional concepts.
The single wheel on the U3-X is made up of many tiny motor-controlled wheels, packed inside the bigger wheel, allowing the device to swerve in any direction.
A wheel made of up of smaller wheels is one of the classic bad ideas of robotics. Back in the 1980s, when robot motion planning software barely worked, many mobile robots were "holonomic" or "omni-drive": they could move in any direction without turning first. One of the popular geometries was three big wheels on axes 120 degrees apart (that robot is in a display case in the lobby of the computer science building at Stanford), with each big wheel composed of little wheels around the rim. This mechanism can execute any rotation or translation.
The problem is that the little wheels only work on hard, flat terrain. Shag rugs are a problem. Grass, dirt, and mud, no way.
I commuted to work by unicycle for several years and have done hundreds of miles in total. Modern unicycles have come a long way from the old days of a circus exhibit. There are lot of people who ride very long distances on them. A unicycle won't suit most people for commuting but it actually has more plus points than you'd think ...
* Lighter weight than a bike, relatively easy to pick up and carry, or wheel along.
* Takes less space than a bike to store indoors.
* Cheaper than a bike of equivalent quality.
* Once you're skilled you can "idle" on the spot (or just hop occasionally to shift the thing back under your centre of mass) so you may not have to put a foot down when waiting in traffic or at lights.
* Potentially very mechanically simple.
* Good exercise, including for your core muscles due to the postural component of keeping balanced.
It's also a good attention grabber, if you like that sort of thing. I've observed that a lot of geeks, particularly computer geeks, seem to like unicycling. My guess is that this is because, relative to a bike, it requires a high degree of mental engagement but in a non-intellectual way. So you get to exercise your brain but in a way which distracts you from the pressures of logical thought processes.
There are some commuting unicycles here:
http://www.unicycle.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=1&subcat=7&cat=Commuter
Note that handlebars are available, which allows experienced riders to take some weight of their "bits". Combined with modern saddles, a unicycle is a lot less punishing to your nether regions than you'd expect, though you obviously still need to take care!
Finally, at the high end of the price range, there are unicycles with the Schlumpf (and Kris Holm-Schlumpf) hub-based gearing system. No exposed gearing but you can get something like a 1.5:1 increase in gear ratio, allowing you go go much faster whilst still having the wheel be small and light. In some ways I'd think this would be the best urban commuting unicycle for experienced riders.
There are clear disadvantages to a unicycle to but I figure some folks here might be interested anyhow. Because an unpowered unicycle has made such a good commuting vehicle for me I wouldn't be surprised if an electrical one is actually more practical than you'd expect.
[if anyone wants to find out more, the rec.sport.unicycling newsground, also available as a forum http://unicyclist.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3 will be able to answer your questions or you can just reply to me here - it's arguably even on topic!]
Don't worry, I'm sure that when horses were first tamed someone bemoaned the loss of walking. I imagine the same thing happened when the carriage was invented, and the bicycle, and the automobile. Pretty girls will still walk, and when they don't they usually get fat, anyway.
Nothing to worry about in that respect.
Free Martian Whores!
Bicycles are far too hard on the environment. You have to mine the iron and aluminum ore and burn coal to process it. That not even counting the (imported) petroleum in the great grease, vulcanized rubber in the wheels, and poly-something-or-other foam in the seat.
Go for the original in environmentally friendly transportation - horses! And when your old model wears out, you can recycle it into glue and dog food!
Something I can sit on while using my treadmill~
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The girls who need to ride something around instead of walking reasonable distances don't stay beautiful for long.
Now, there's nothing quite like pretty girls in skirts riding bicycles.
Hate to break it to you, but Toyota does robotics, as well. Most heavy industries do at least a bit of this stuff, especially in Japan.
Just read the comic B.C.
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If the bicycle were invented today, it would come with that label. We live in a society that is increasingly litigious and risk-averse. These both apply more for newer and higher-tech things - more so for commercial airplanes than cars, in spite of their relative risks.
People don't usually die in {bicycle,Segway,Honda thing} crashes, but they do sometimes, and for a new device, that's enough that its creators usually fear lawsuits without that label. These things might be a bit silly and overpriced, but they're not dangerous no matter what the stupid sticker says.
That sticker is really big. I bet a child could easily pry it off and choke on it.
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