U3-X Personal Mobility Device: Air Bag Optional
Honda's nifty self-balancing electric unicycle takes you where the Segway never could -- sideways. This 22 pound personal mobility device and reinvention of the wheel, will speed you anywhere you can get to in one hour, at top speed of 3.7 mph.
You can sit on it in a stationery position, like a stool. Or just lean in the direction you want it to go. More at Impact Lab
Labels: reinventing wheels
posted by al fin at 3:23 am
7 Comments:
Or I could walk. For free.
Not NEARLY big enough seat for the kinds of fat asses who are the target market for this sort of idiocy.
SwampWoman is right.
Get off your lazy ass and walk.
Or in her case wade :0
While the Segway only found niche markets like patroling properties and such, it did make for an interesting platform for many robot projects. This thing might also. Going sideways would be more versitile but no matter how stable it is, robots based on it would probably benefit from being able to self-right incase someone pushed it down deliberately. Maybe they could be taught to call each other for help in getting up.
I find it hard to envision how a combination of internal wheels can make the thing move sideways without obstructing forward movement. If it were sitting on a big track ball I could understand but a sideways wheel is kind of odd.
Think in terms of additive vectors, Baron. The side wheels moving in concert while the main wheel moves forward or reverse. Stay off the ice!
I don't know how they engineered the embedded side wheels, but a flexible shaft axle loop would be elegant.
The comments about walking bring up an interesting point. For a personal mobility device to make sense it needs to be practical for those trips that are longer than one would willingly travel on foot (and back) but not so long that slow speed would make car or bus travel preferable. Some locations would be naturally better markets for it based on density and traffic.
Jousting!
And crash derbies - add a foam bat / pillow fight component and one could actually get some exercise out of it. Add a wet teeshirt component and you've got a pay-per-view event.
That video really makes the mechanism clear; quite clever. I could certainly see it being useful for robots that don't need to climb stairs (unless one gives them arms long enough to walk/lift itself up them). While more mobile and maneuverable than a Segway based bot, it would be far more efficient than legged robots. I am picturing an anorexic Asimo on a unicycle. Instead of a bulky backpack it could have "saddle bags" for its batteries, keeping its center of mass lower.
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