Posted on 12/03/2001 4:17:56 PM PST by spycatcher
"The United States Advanced Battery Consortium has a budget of $260 million dollars focused on the development of new battery technologies such as Lithium-Iron Disulfide, Sodium-Sulfer, Lithium-Polymer, and Lithium-Iron."
There's even batteries you can print out on paper: Power Paper
From the article:
"And unlike conventional battery electrolytes, the Power Paper creation is environmentally safe and doesn't require a hard metal case typical in ordinary dry-cell batteries."
I wonder if Polaroid might go after them? The "Polapulse" technology has been around for quite a while, and this stuff looks very similar to it from what I can read in that article.
But, he was on the Mark III version of his invention that would do umpdedump acres a day. At that point he had spent over $300,000 in development costs (this was in 1968-real money then). When I researched the acreage of asparagus versus his stated capacity, there was a market for about six machines on the whole West Coast.
Hardly the market to spend so much in development, support marketing costs, etc.
But, being the pleasant and aimiable guy that I am, I went to the first field trial of Mark III and watched for an hour as it chopped,destroyed and made mush of a couple acres of expensive veggies.
His only comment was that the Mark IV would perform better!
So, it is a $3,000 walker. Still very limited use having little or no societal impact.
Yes, it consumes energy in keeping you constantly balanced. It seems that it corrects any overbalancing before it goes too far, requiring lots of torque to correct. I'm sure the 15 miles is a straight line number. Include bad balance, rough terrain and hills, and it will probably go down.
Since it appears to be for local commuting where recharging is always easily available, battery life probably won't be a problem. I'd expect to see longer life fuel cell or micro-turbine powered versions in the future if battery life starts to be a problem.
"In addition to be inefficient, it will also be dangerous."
First time users step on and ride and don't fall off with basically no instructions except for "do it." It sounds much safer than a bicycle.
My only worry is the weight, since there will be places you'll want or need to pick it up and carry it.
Huh? You can't tip over something with three (non-colinear) wheels, short of bodily lifting it off the ground.
$300,000 of OPM, I presume? :)
(If I ever do come up with something I'm confident will work, I'll build a prototype using scrap metal, used/surplus motors, some homebrew sensors, a "BASIC Stamp" controller, and roll my own firmware. It shouldn't cost me more than a couple hundred bucks, and I'll be using my own money.)
So the Old Professer is into the new school of spouting off about things which he was too lazy or thought too beneath himself to research. :) Electric motors move the Segway, not rocking. I realize that neither of my explanations may be right as to why you got it wrong. So I'll let you tell us why you got it wrong.
Until all that asparagus drives the price through the floor.
That should sew up the French market.
Add to this list, a scooter that doesn't let you fall off.
Big deal.
That's the sound of a lead balloon going over, which is all that this device amounts to. Come to think of it...*SPLUD* is the same sound that some fatso's rump is going to make on the pavement once this thing's battery cuts out.
LOL What do you suppose he'd say? I seriously doubt that after seeing a Segway and then reading how it works on the Segway Web site he would even bother looking at the patents. That is, unless he was dishonest and wanted to steal from the Segway patent.
Yep, those innovators all a bunch of thieves and lowlifes. <\sarcasm>
Correct. Unless you're moving. (And BTW, the ability to move is generally considered to be a major "plus" for a vehicle.)
Then, acceleration, deceleration, and turning become a question of when it will fall over, not if. Give it enough sideways (or forward or reverse) force, and it will fall over, guaranteed.
Not so with a two-wheel device, presuming adequate tire traction. And the traction issue is one more thing that favors a two-wheeled vehicle, but mitigates against a more-than-two wheeled vehicle -- the better the traction, the less force it will take to topple it.
A two-wheeled vehicle has greater stability because its effective center of gravity is below ground level.
This scooter has the same type stability as a motorcycle or bicycle, but it has it in in the linear aspect rather than while turning.
It can't fall over when it stops, because the way it stops is by "banking" to the rear, and digging in with the tires. The harder it stops, the more it "banks". If you're riding it, and execute a hard stop, you'll lean back, but if you close your eyes, you'll feel like you're in a "down elevator" that's coming to a stop. You'll feel increased weight on the bottoms of your feet, but nothing pushing you either forward or backard. As it slows down, it'll gradually decrease the back-leaning angle, until it comes to rest with you standing straight up.
Where it won't have a whole lot of stability is in high-speed turns. That's because it can't lean/bank into a turn, due to its wheels being parallel.
If he comes out with a one-wheel version, it'll be highly maneuverable, because in addition to leaning into starts and stops, it'll be able to lean into a turn, so you won't have to slow down to turn. You'll lose low speed maneuverability, but what you gain in high speed handling will be impressive. (And I expect it's just a matter of time before he comes out with a one-wheel version, since he shows it in his patent filings.)
I don't think you understand asparagus farming, or Clintonian politics.
First, there won't be any more asparagus harvested with an automated picker than there is when it's harvested by migrants. The crowns don't know or care who or what is picking the spears. The picking starts in the spring, and continues for six weeks. The same amount of asparagus will be harvested using either technique.
Right now, the price is "through the floor", but it has nothing to do with the quantity of asparagus. The price is "through the floor" because NAFTA and Clinton created a situation where third world & Chinese asparagus -- produced at by people who work for slave wages and/or by operations that are subsidized by their governments -- are coming into the USA unimpeded, and selling below the cost of production for American farmers.
I don't know if you're a "free market/Libertarian" sort, and in any event I am not inclined to get into a urinating match over that topic. Suffice it to say that my position is that if we allow our country to fall into a state in which it is unable to feed itself, because cheap foreign imported agriculture has driven American farmers off the land, we are basically finished as a nation, because it's just a question of time before one or more of those other countries decides to blackmail us, at which point we either obey, or starve. And apart from that, I think it's plain stupid to export American jobs and dollars to other countries, with the only domestic "benefit" being a few fat-walleted brokers and traders who manage to skim some money off the top as it's making its way to China.
"That's the sound of a lead balloon going over, which is all that this device amounts to. Come to think of it...*SPLUD* is the same sound that some fatso's rump is going to make on the pavement once this thing's battery cuts out."
You seem to be personally vested in needing to have this product fail. As I said earlier, I find it curious that so many people are so bitter about this. It's really remarkable to watch people get so bent out of shape. This goes way beyond the "Get a horse!" contingent. This is like "Get a horse and FOAD, MF!" Too strange for words.
Me, I'd gladly use one if I could get my hands on it. I don't know what kind of health you have, but mine is rotten, and I gotta tell you that sitting around the house -- because your bones and heart don't lend themselves to walking for more than a few feet -- kinda gets old after a while. And yeah, I can ride in a car. Isn't that special. I can't walk down the road to my pond, I can't do a lot of things that other people take for granted, and frankly, I don't give a R'sA over someone's idea that a device that could make my life a whole lot better is a joke.
Kamen is too used to selling medical devices where price is no object. Three grand will buy a nice used motorcycle.
This isn't directed at you specifically, rather, at a whole segment of people. I'm dismayed that so many people don't understand basic research and development, economies of scale and recouping investment. Research and development cost money (in the red). A high starting price is meant to recoup the cost as quickly as feasibly possible (to get into the black). That's exactly why the latest, greatest, fastest CPUs (central processing unit) in PCs (personal computer) cost so much more than it's predecessor. Anybody that has done research before buying their second computer should know that. As demand increases to a certain level, economies of scale are met and the price comes down.
Plus, there's technology advances that give the item more value while keeping the same price. PCs are excellent examples of that. The computer power that a thousand dollars buys today cost a million dollars fifteen years ago.
VCRs entered the market at about a thousand dollars. In six years they were selling for around $250 and the technology had improved. Ditto for pocket calculators and Internet access. The cost for Internet access has only dropped a little but in the past eight years the modem speed has quadrupled. Four times more for the same amount of money. When we consider broad band, the price has doubled while the bandwidth has increased two-hundred fold.
I agree. Hmm. Maybe Segway (synonymous with segue) is that its continuation will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. IOW, maybe people will wake up and see that a bloated government destroys more values than it produces.
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