The Gadgets Page

Trevor Blackwell has built his own self-balancing scooter that works like a Segway.

• Building a Balancing Scooter

He insists that it’s easier than you might think to build a scooter like this, bragging that the code controlling the gyroscope is only 500 lines long.

“Although the Segway has several exotic components, mine is built from common low-tech parts like wheelchair motors and RC car batteries. The parts, even at small quantity retail prices, cost less than half of a genuine Segway.”

Of course, a Segway has been made consumer safe with all sorts of fail-safes to keep you from hurting yourself. His version may not be as safe.

“There is one very important difference between what can be built as an experiment and the commercial Segway: The commercial one has a lot of safety features, redundancy and fool-proofing. Mine has none whatsoever (Well, it does have a kill switch so it doesn’t go zooming away if I fall off, and it does shut down if it finds itself tipped more than 45 degrees.) This is pretty darn important, and you should think about it very carefully before considering building such a thing yourself. With a scooter like this, if it stops working for any reason (software crash, hardware failure, low battery) you will fall, hard, and probably on your face.“

In the end, I think a bike would be better. My bike can go way faster than a scooter and no one will stop me and ask me about it.