Kamen is a great inventor, cardiac stents, the stair climbing, standing, self-balancing wheelchair, and portable the dialysis machine. All great ideas that are pretty obvious in retrospect, and all pulled off with near perfect success. But, even though the geek in me would really love to try out a Segway, I think he botched this one. Here is my advice for the makers of Segway.
You should have waited a few years for computer hardware to get smaller and cheaper and for your micro-sized Stirling engine to be ready. The Segway isn’t cool looking. Bicycles have been around for years and they still look like a cool mode of transportation. My suggestion is to remove the control stalk and handle bars, and add straps for your feet. Let the balancing software and gyroscopes do the rest. Steering, acceleration, and braking all based on body movement, like a skateboard but requiring less effort. That way your hands are free, the device is much smaller and lighter, and you don’t look like a geek when you’re on the thing. It’s a glorified scooter, not the second coming, if you can’t sell it for less than $500 its not meant to be. Lastly, ditch the name. What are people supposed to say, “Hey hun, I’m gonna Segway to the market”? It would sound like we had a nation of talkshow hosts.
I saw Segways in action at Walt Disney World last week, and I have to say, they are SUPER COOL. I want one, and when the price drops to about $500, I’ll probably get one.
How would you turn left and right with your system? The handle bar is also the steering wheel. You can turn on a dime with the thing, btw, and if someone puts just a bit of pressure on the handle bars from in front of you, they can keep you from moving.
Once they get cheap enough, I’ll enjoy seeing how the masses will pimp it out. I’d love to get one so I could put chrome spoked wheels on it. Or maybe beef it up to make it an all terrain vehicle. Maybe some sort of snow-shoe wheel too. The after-market stuff that could be added on might make me rich. But now that I’ve gone public with my plans, you will surely steal them from me, you kniving knaves.
When the Segue costs $5K, and you can get a brand-new Vespa ET2 scooter for $3K (and a decent used one for $2K or less, probably), it’s hard to see what you get from the Segway that’s worth the extra $2K or more.
I can see the advantages of a Segway in a handful of specialized situations where one person has tasks a lot of stop-and-start over very short distances, but more than just a few steps’ worth at a time, who don’t have to carry a lot at any one time: mail carriers, workers at sorting facilities, and the like.
For the rest of us, though, the Vespa’s got the edge. It goes faster too - 40 mph (v. 30 mph tops for the Segway, IIRC).
And for me, a bicycle ($500) still beats either one, hands down.
I think that a vehicle of this type, but without the control stalk would be very tricky to get used to; skateboards aren’t impossible to use because they are passive; I think there would be conflicts between your own adaptive balance and that of the machine.
The way I envisioned it, the Segway’s computer would be using most of its resources to achieve balance, but would still be able to perceive deliberate shifts in weight. So, you stand up on the thing, lock your feet in and the platform balances, if you lean only slightly the machine compensates and maintains balance. But if you shift your weight enough and cross a certain threshold the computer interprets that you want to move in that direction and steers and accelerates accordingly. To stop, gradually shift your weight back to a neutral position. To stop on a dime, shift you weight quickly in the opposite direction you are heading.
It’s a self-balancing, two wheeled, motorized skateboard with a super efficient stirling engine that’s light, compact, and doesn’t cost and arm and a leg. As opposed to a self-balancing, two wheeled, motorized scooter that needs giant batteries, is big and heavy, and costs as much as a used car.
The first cars didn’t have steering wheels and looked a little clutsy like the current Segway.
I am sure as time passes, there were be versions without the post steering, with smaller frame, faster, etc. If your great-granparents could see what car you are driving now, they would be mighty impressed - especially at speed that were unheard of.
I am more inclined to think this gyroscope technology will be more important when the “flying” Segway is introduced.
There are currently two models of the Segway. The “e series” has some luggage capacity. Maybe not enough for a week’s worth of groceries, but then again I don’t think the Segway is intended for the American suburban life where you drive 5 miles to the grocery store once a week.
costs $5K, and you can get a brand-new 