ABCNEWS' Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer joined inventor Dean Kamen for a ride on his new invention — the Segway Human Transporter. (ABCNEWS.com)
Posted on 12/03/2001 4:17:56 PM PST by spycatcher
ABCNEWS' Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer joined inventor Dean Kamen for a ride on his new invention — the Segway Human Transporter. (ABCNEWS.com)
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'IT' Gets Around
Mysterious Invention Moves People  N E W Y O R K, Dec. 3
— After nearly a year of speculation, Dean Kamen's mysterious machine — IT — was revealed on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. |
While Kamen's invention, the Segway Human Transporter, does move people, it doesn't leave the ground — and it's powered by a battery. The inventor revealed his two-wheeled personal transportation device, intended for a single standing rider, today on Good Morning America. "This is the world's first self-balancing human transporter," Kamen said. "You stand on this Segway Human Transporter and you think forward and then you go forward. If you think backward, you go backward." The transporter, which can go up to 12 miles an hour, looks more like a lawn mower than a scooter and has no brakes. It is designed to mimic the human body's ability to maintain its balance; riders control the speed and direction of the device simply by shifting their weight and using a manual turning mechanism on one of the handlebars. "All of the knowledge that went into knowing how to walk is transferred to this machine," Kamen said. "When you stand on this machine, it kind of walks for you. It just does it smoothly and gracefully." The 65-pound device, also known by its former code name, "Ginger," looks simple, but its inner workings are intricate. Tilt sensors monitor the rider's center of gravity more than 100 times a second, and are able to signal both the direction and the speed to the device's electric motor and wheels.
Kamen says the Segway can take its rider up to 15 miles on a six-hour charge from a regular wall socket. He bills it as an environmentally friendly alternative to cars, and expects that in the future the devices will replace the car in urban centers. The first models are expected to be available to consumers in about a year at a price of about $3,000, said Kamen. Source of Endless Speculation Kamen already has a series of high-profile inventions under his belt. He created a dialysis machine that is the size of a briefcase, a portable insulin pump and a wheelchair that climbs stairs, called iBot, which he had code-named "Fred." Word of IT first leaked out in January when the media learned that a publisher had paid a $250,000 advance for a book about a device by Kamen the editor said could transform our lives, our cities and our thinking. That sparked off a media frenzy — and the guessing game. But the high-powered innovators and thinkers Kamen showed his invention to — including technology heavyweights Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Steve Jobs — remained tight-lipped. Bob Metcalf, a computer engineer who helped create the building blocks for the Internet, revealed a few details to ABCNEWS about Kamen's invention nearly a year before IT was revealed. "I've seen it, and it is… more important than pantyhose and it's more important than the Internet," said Metcalf in an interview in January. He said that on a scale of one to 10 — one being mundane and 10 being revolutionary — he would rank Kamen's invention "in the high nines." He implied that the device would contain a computer chip, that it may have to do with transportation, and that people would probably want to own more than one. Kamen, who kept his invention a secret in the face of mass speculation, said his silence was not part of a plan to build public interest. When information about his invention was leaked, he still had to file hundreds of patent claims. "We always work on our confidential projects confidentially," Kamen said. "Unfortunately, somebody in their excitement let the world know what we were working on a year ago and we weren't ready." The United States Postal Service and the National Park Service have plans to field test a number of the personal transportation devices next year. "We've got a quarter of a million letter carriers out on the street," said John Nolan, the deputy postmaster general, "and we've got the opportunity to increase efficiency reduce the wear and tear on their bodies and improve the environment all the same time." But will it transform lives, cities and even thinking, as first hyped in the media? Futurists who considered themselves skeptics were initially impressed. "This is a marvelous first device," said Paul Saffo, the director of the Institute for the Future. "It remains open to see if it's going to grow up and go out into the world at large, but it's clearly gotten far enough to be practical in places like warehouses and industrial campuses." There does seem to be a clear consensus: It is a bold attempt to not just reinvent the wheel but to reinvent the ways wheels can be used. ABCNEWS' Antonio Mora contributed to this report. |
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The catches are: 1)it's too heavy to lug up stairs and 2)idiots are usually more resourceful than the idiot-proofing engineers imagined.
Now ask yourself, if this was 1981, how many would be saying the same thing about the personal computer?
RTFP! I was responding to spycatcher's following dim post, not "comparing the entire system to a caster:"
Two wheels gives it a turning radius of zero which is one of the breakthroughs.
And of course, a turning radius of zero is nothing new, look at any industrial lawn-mower which uses two drive wheels for direction and one or more uncontrolled, passive casters to support the weight! Zero turning radius. Nothing new.
You are of course correct, though: A caster is by definition an uncontrolled, passive device.
Just as the Road&Track people mount casters as safety catches on rollover tests on SUVs, so will this magic device in actual production, I predict. There will be some fall-forward limit skid or caster/bumper to protect from real world object or terrain collision or power failure, if not immediately, at least after the first personal injury lawsuit.
I'm a cynic, because God made me an engineer (or is it the other way around?) I do not detract from the innovator, I've just seen the actual design cycle after a product is dumped into the real world and made "idiot proof." (Take Dianne Sawyer's bungling of the device with simple idiotic behaviour, for example.) At production time, this product won't appear as elegant, even if it is fully functional and innovative.
Three points define a plane. -- Anonymous
2) From what I've seen, this device doesn't turn by leaning into turns (maybe the rider does and a sensor detects that direction), one wheel moves faster on one side to effect the turn. How is adding another two wheels going to affect that, passive castors aside? And since this guy's an engineer, why have passive casters? Oh yeah, the castors were only for stabilization, not for the driving wheels.
3) When I was much younger, I owned and rode a Schwinn unicycle and can tell you from experience that it was not very stable. Sure, you could stay in one place by rocking back and forth not to mention the inevitable competition to see who could ride backward longest but once you stopped moving, you were on your face. If you added his gyro system it would eliminate this problem but what have you gained?
4) You're not the only one with a disability. I'm sure you take as many meds if not more than I do just to get around but you don't see me attacking people who question its viability especially when it's our tax dollars involved in supporting it by buying it for government agencies. They couldn't use an electric (not the shaving kind heh heh) razor? Only this device will work for the P.O? and other agencies and warehouses, cmon now?
5) For your 155, see my 127, item #4
6) If you've actually read my posts, then you'll see I'm not attacking this device, just it's cost to benefit ratio for what it does which is really what it comes down to. We're supposed to design cities around IT? My, that's a little presumptuous.
I can't recall an FR thread with more whining, negative unimaginative crap.
IT may start at $3000 but the price should come down rapidly with mass production techniques. Nobody has mentioned that whatever is in the thing can't cost more than $300 in materials cost.
This could solve a lot problems with mass transit. High speed rail to hubs and then grab your IT from a locker to get to work.
The mobility this offers for the aging baby-boomers and disabled is revolutionary.
This is the "Model A" - the first. I'm sure they will not be able to improve it in any way shape, form or cost. Right.
Thanks for the post.
Would it be safe to say that you think that this whole thing is false advertising?
has some uses for specialized situations.
Will it utterly change the way we live?
I think not.
Forgive me for having a little fun, but say, do you perchance live in a cave in Afghanistan? And might your security force drives our old three wheel ATV's? Well, here in the US they aren't sold anymore. Why? Because they tipped over and killed all their owners -- that's how you got yours.
"Our machines will rip the bones from your back, it's a deathtrap, a suicide rap, gotta get out while you're young, cause champs like us, baby we were born to bomb"
It's really a simple matter of physics, 3 points defines a plane and thus is the most stable way to attach an object to a plane. Obviously there's always some way to screw that up, but in your basic non abuse situation 3 points is the most stable. The problem with to points is forward/ backward momentum. Without the gyros for balance this thing would ALWAYS flip flop on the tourque plane (what battlebots, there's lots of two-wheeled killer in there, they never stay verticle without leaning on something, which is effectively what a gyro does). Which creates a problem in the event of low power.
One of the other problem with the Segway is the body position control. Sure it seems cool, no control surfaces to master a learning curve measured in seconds. But it only seems cool if you never walked around downtown Chicago during autumn. I've been hit by winds hard enough to tilt my body, and when I think of getting tilted by wind while on a device that will try to go in the direction my body is leaning I see trouble. Add crowded urban streets and buses to the mix and you've got dead Segway riders.
On another note this thing will be useless for the handicapped. Most people who have difficulties moving around the real problem is with supporting their weight while verticle. They can't handle standing in line any better than they can walking. This is a stand to operate vehicle, anybody that thinks it will improve the mobility of the handicapped is drunk.
Then there's the 65 pounds and major width. This is not a man portable vehicle. If you have any stairs to navigate you're SOL; how about opening a pull door, gonna be hard to grab the handle on your Segway, guess you could get off and drag the thing. Dragging it brings up an interesting question, what happens if you tilt it forward without being on it? That could get annoying as it surges ahead of you until you can't hold the handle then stops. And since it's wider than people you actually won't be able to fit as many of these on the sidewalks of America as you can people. And it's too wide to mingle with traffic on the roads like bicycles.
What we have here is some really cool technology used to make an incredibly lame device. And I realize that you're excited aboutthe tech, I'm excited about the tech, it's really cool. But you have to look at the big picture, how they put all this cool tech together is stupid and the thing is going to be useless. I'm glad one of the postal tests is in New Hampshire in January, nothing like a New England winter to test out a vehicle concept.
I'm thinking that with the Segway, there may be those "issues" you talk about. I know they've had time to think of everything and test it themselves in all sorts of situations, but the real world and idiot riders (like Diane Sawyer) will be the true test. As for wind, people shift their weight into the wind to compensate for the push in the opposite direction. So the net effect should be zero, but there may also be a temporary hiccup.
My biggest question is how it will handle curbs and weird angled drop-offs.
As for the wind, all I can say is you've never dealt with Chicago wind. In the short time I was there I was knocked down, pushed around and skidded by the wind (that was fun, leaning real good, too much ice on the sidewalk, slid backwards right into a mailbox). You might try to lean forward but you can't the wind is too buff. Saw a guy once with an art portfolio (BIG folder to us normal folks) that caught the wind just wrong and it actually picked him up off the ground, only a foot or so (shoved him about 6 feet backwards while he was in the air). Any of those kind of forces while on something that responds to your shifting weight will be quite amusing to watch, no fun at all to be in the middle of. And Chicago isn't the only place that get's that kind of wind, it's just the only place that's proud of it. Most coastal areas and some desert places will get some serious winds, not as often but just as intense.
I would bet anything that Kamen already has another lab version of this (2/4 wheels) that goes up stairs and curbs just like his 6-wheel iBot. This one could probably go strait off a curb, and through small potholes, but that's it.
Any low-tech three wheel design would be a total mess with curbs, potholes, etc. And of course it could never navigate stairs.
Why do you take this so personal??? Try this:
1) You claimed that "zero turning radius" was one of the new innovations here.
And I merely reminded you (and Bad Back Joe) that a zero turning radius is not new. See any moving dolly with casters...or, see the 1896 Manual Reel Mower with "zero turning radius."
2) You claim I advocate "more wheels is better." .
No, I claim that three points define a plane. (Can't wait to hear you argue that one!) I do however insist that a practical real world production model will include a mechanical, failsafe longitudinal safety bumper/caster to protect idiots from running into curbs head-on at 17mph. If they don't, Personal Injury lawyers will design it for them, and that will be ugly.
3) You claim that such a caster would create some inordinate amount of friction.
No, I didn't even suggest that in normal operation such bumper/skid/caster would even touch the ground. It would merely have to protect the device from hitting anything beyond the maximum vehicle entry or exit angles. Look under any car for the skid plate and see if they trust users to avoid curbs and rocks.Besides, if your powerplant can't withstand the extra rolling resistance of a hard-rubber caster with ball bearings, then you're really going to have trouble powering 12" pneumatic tires with DC motors with brushes and bushings and planetary gear reduction!!
And yes, as Rush has, I have been loaned talent from God to be an engineer.
Anyway...you seem to have missed my request:
Perhaps you could show us all the virtuous pros of being a blowhard putz who weaves in and out of his skewed language bent on driving home the endless possibilities of a liberal fantasy versus one of the US Marines attached to the 15 MEU/SOC [Grunts] currently positioned outside of Kandahar Risking their lives to defend our nation?
:o)
UP NEXT THE MACHINE THAT WIPES YOUR BACKSIDE FILM AT 11
This is all too common and you can see how it relates to several other laws and regulations that congress creates in order to justify their parasitical livelihoods and unearned paychecks.
A million mopeds were sold before the government began regulating/licensing/registering requirements of the end user/owner. The manufacturer already had the government breathing down its neck like every other industry. The parasites/politicians allow the field/industry to gain a strong enough foothold to survive the government onslaught.
Then the politicians and bureaucrats swooped in with a vote and the stroke of the pen and began sucking value from the moped industry. The values they suck out can be seen in the cost of owning the moped. The value/money they drain from moped owner is greater than the value of the protection the new regulation/law gives in return. Which is but one major reason why politicians and bureaucrats rightful earned the parasite label.
How long can the host/citizens survive the parasites sucking more and more values from them? Like struggling to ride a bicycle uphill into a head-wind, when the parasites are stripped of their power to suck value from citizens and society is akin to the bicycle rider cresting the top of the hill and taking the free-wheeling ride down the other side.
The experience and values for citizens and society will be like a new industrial revolution compressed into one tenth the time as the last one. And that will natural flourish from the current level of technology which is light years more advanced than when the Industrial Revolution began 240 years ago in Belgium. Well, maybe not light years ahead. After all, they did have the printing press and bicycle but not the steam engine.
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Is this "IT?" A two-wheeled, battery powered transportation device, known as the Segway Human Transporter, is displayed at a studio in New York on Dec. 3. (Peter Morgan/Reuters)