Posted on 12/03/2001 4:17:56 PM PST by spycatcher
And it's not taxpayer subsidized though as some have claimed. UPS and FedEx are just as interested as the Postal Service. But they're only testing it right now, no big purchase contract yet.
See, that's what's so nice about engineering...it's not just a magical art that only one guy can know, it's the application of scientific principles to ordinary everyday life.
This is why a qualified "arrogant" civi engineer with 10 years of experience can inspect a bridge designed by a master with 40 years of experience. It's why any mech. enginerd can design a tuned port fuel injection intake for a 50-year old small block designed before he was born. Engineering is not an elite and exclusive world like celebs in Hollywood...anyone can play by the rules of physics.
Again, I have applauded your optimism, and I'm certain the QA guys and Kamen will confront the idiot-proofing measures before they attempt sales to the general public (it's a good idea to pre-trial these with the Post Office, for example, so the individual initial users won't sue over the early prototypes.) I just, as an "arrogant" engineer look at this device as a physics problem on a page, not shiny prototype plastic on a TV show.
I'm frankly very interested in how they will elegantly address this problem, and I hope you're still around on this board so we can discuss it.
For simplicity, my problem with "two lateral wheels is better than a bike or a trike" is this problem:
If you're going 17mph and you hit a discontinuity in the road that suddenly decelerates (or stops) one or both wheels, even with a magically adaptable control feedback system, what are the possible outcomes?Now sure, if you run head on into a curb with a mountain bike or tiny trike, you're going to tend to do the same rotate on one's head thing, but the entry angle of a bike wheel is much larger and the moment of inertia is not nearly as large as a person standing erect with his feet fixed near the ground.Either the inertia of the person (weighing 3-4 times the base) carries her over the pivot point onto the sidewalk, -or- the herculean strength of the drive motors attempt to decelerate the person asap by applying torque to counterract her fall.
To counterract the torque of a 200lb person is going to have to take huge ft-lbs at the wheels...and even if it could deliver that much torque to the ground as you're falling forward, it's either hit the pavement time or hit your crotch on the handlebars at 17 mph.
Actually I was refering to folks with problems similar to yours. People that technically can stand and walk but for whom it is quite painful or exhausting. A lot of folks in your position say the problem is with walking but if you check with the doctor you'll probably find out the real problem is with standing. Your body is no longer willing to hold you verticle.
Well, picture the same thing, but with either a seat, or a standing brace. Now you have a grocery store go cart that's higher tech. Also I'm not convinced Segway will handle that kind of drastic change in the center of gravity.
It will become the ultimate prosthetic. They'll be able to control it with subtle upper body movement. It would probably be possible to control it with nothing more than head movement.
I can see by this that you have a very emotional attachment to the possibilities Segway puts forth, and understandably so. And while I agree the technology in Segway is a stepping stone to your dream device I feel that the potential is in the underlying tech, how they used it is no help to people like you.
Imagine how your paralyzed friend would feel if he could walk next to you on a hike through the woods? Go fishing with you? Rabbit or pheasant hunting? Try that in a wheelchair!
The paralyzed person in question would have better luck trying to do these things in this guys previous invention (the stair climbing wheel chair) than in this.
Major width? Huh? It's a couple inches wider than the people who rode it on GMA.
Scope the picks again. There's close to a foot between the rider on the wheel on each side, and the wheel well is wide enough to put a fat briefcase on. As near as I can see these things come pretty close to 2 people wide.
It's probably narrower than me. :) As to the stairs, it has a "follow" mode.
Follow mode might help it get through doors, but it doesn't have the stuff (wheel exposure and ground torque) necessary to go up stairs, you're still going to have to lug it's 65 pounds up by hand.
It's not really that wide, and besides, it's designed for sidewalks, not roads.
The first step in America for the acceptance of people movers other than cars is to stick them on the road with the cars. Local safety officials aren't going to want these things on the sidewalk with unarmored people. I know he says it's like running into a person but that's bogus, normal people don't go 17 MPH and then this thing adds another 65 pounds of inertia. Places like NYC don't allow bikes, skateboard or even manual scooters to be ridden on the sidewalk, they won't allow these.
The rest of your worries mentioned in that paragraph are silly. It's like arguing against automobiles, because "what happens if granny closes her eyes and stomps on the gas?"
You might think they're silly. My life is QA and I think they're genuine, they might not be reasons in and of themselves to junk the device but they are part of a long list of reasons that when taken as a whole show it's just not that cool.
That's quite the indictment. Me, I'm kinda lame, and I could sure use one to help compensate for it. I'd spend a lot more time outdoors, rather than in front of my computer.
I have great sympathy, even greater because I have the type of knee and back problems now that will make me just as lame as yourself in another couple of decades. And as I said I can see you have a lot of hope for the potential of the device and it's quite understandable. And it's quite possible that because of my profession I am just as skewed to the bleak side of the picture as you are to the hopeful, but I just cannot see this device safely providing even half of your hopes for it.
What will you say if after the trial, everyone is grinning ear to ear, reporting incredibly higher productivity, beaucoup dollars saved (even when factoring in cost of vehicles), lower medical costs, etc?
I'll say I was wrong and you were right. I am wrong periodically. But I'm very careful to keep those occurances rare, one of the ways I keep them rare is to publicly take it on the chin when I'm wrong, that's an awful experience and one learns good ways (good being non-hypocritical, avoiding hypocrisy is very important in my life) to avoid repeating it. But I think it's going to be a major failure.
Will there be days when it can't be used due to drifting snow, ice, whatever? Sure. Does that mean it's worthless?
Might not mean it's worthless, but it does mean Kramen is full of crap. He's still saying this is the future of transportation and will eventually replace the car, at least for urban transportation. And if it can't handle the same weather conditions as the car then he's wrong.
This device is a "force multiplier". It lets one person do more than he could do without it. A mailman will be able to cover a route much larger than he covers on foot, and he'll be able to cover it in less time, with less wear and tear on his body. (Mail delivery folks tend to have unhappy joints, but happy orthopedists.)
Less wear and tear probably. More territory, probably not. The majority of time for a postal worker is spent at the box not in transit, and what transit there is is quite short, just single yard hops (which is why transit is such a short percentage of their time).
Your suggested "improvements" would result in less safety. They'd be like training wheels on a motorcycle. You'd fall over the first time you tried to corner at more than 5 mph on such a motorbike.
I disagree with both parts. 1, training/ safety wheels on linear wheeled things are there to keep you from banking, while it's true that banking is the way to handle high speed turns, over banking is a serious danger with linear wheeled devices especially for those new to it. What happens with safety wheels is you can't bank so you can't turn as sharply and thus you learn to take corners at a safe speed.
As for my changes you have to understand where I'm coming from. Goal one of those changes is to make the device cheaper. At $3000 per unit at a presumed rate of sales of almost half a million a year (factory capable of 40,000 units per month, with a second factory being built) these things are grossly over priced, the key to the pricing seems to be the gyros and complex computers that use them, so the way to make it cheaper is to make it not need them.
As for the safety aspect, yes my way is safer. By no being body position controled all the various things that make your body shift position (wind, satchels, hills, sneezing, you name it anything that makes your body change position could cause this thing to spiral out of control) stop being such a problem if it has normal control surfaces like the grocery store electric carts. Plus with the extra contact points the thing becomes harder to tilt and thus less likely to fall over.
This device relies on the forces that scare you. If you take measures to counter them, you'll be crippling it.
Which of course it what should happen. I think it's amazing that they figured out how to control a vehicle by the shifting of a persons weight. Really cool. Unfortunately in an open air vehicle that people are supposed to stand in while they operate, and one with no storage capacity so if the person is carrying things (like the postmen that will be testing it) they'll have to do so in a backpack or satchel, this mode of control goes from being nifty to being dangerous and stupid. Put this mode of control in something enclosed and with storage room and it's cool. But right now anything that makes the distribution of your body weight change on the vehicle (the list of which is very long because it has no coverage, no storage and you're supposed to stand on it) can change the direction the vehicle is moving in. I've lived in Chicago, I've driven through Texas Canyon here in Arizona during a wind storm (happens almost every time I come home from visiting the in-laws), I know how scary it is being buffeted by winds strong enough to move you under normal conditions, add to that a vehicle that's actually going to want to go in the direction of the wind because your weight shifted and it's supposed to follow your weight and you have a very dangerous device. I'm sorry that you can't see that but that's the fact of the matter whether you agree or not.
Hydrogen -was- the most efficient gas for use in the Hindenberg, but not the safest. The Titanic was a marvel of innovative unsinkability. The Tacoma Narrows bridge was a very elegant and innovative bridge, but it turned out to be an even better airfoil. The Ford Pinto had a surprising amount of interior space thanks to the innovative placment of the fuel tank. etc.
It's important to have skeptics....lives can depend on it.
Ford and fuel tanks are a sore point with me. I have had two Ford vehicles drop their fuel tanks on the pavement after the straps rusted through. This isn't exactly a maintenance issue, since the owner can't see the straps, and they are exposed to road salt.
This was about 15 years ago, but I haven't forgotten.
Guess that makes it "Fix Or Repair Droptank???" I think my last Dodge truck had a plastic tank. Don't know that that made me feel good...static....TWA800....hmmmm.
"Get a horse!"
I don't know, I like it! I think I want one.
Of course people might get hurt at some point, but maybe not nearly as easily as you think. With today's legal and regulatory atmosphere there are plenty of skeptics in-house to second guess the engineeering. In fact the company's top design priority was safety, so don't waste too much brainpower until you know how it actually works or talk to DEKA engineers! I'm sure there will soon be a FAQ to answer all such questions, and people who are using the product will report flaws and design revisions can be made.
If you then seriously have ways to resolve any issues that arise, you can contact the company. They are known to have the one of the best working environments for engineers in the world. You're basically free to do whatever you want and tinker with various projects like it's your garage. The key question they ask potential employees is, "Do you look at so-called insurmountable problems as opportunities?" I like that attitude. It's what separates average engineers from brilliant inventive ones. You may be in the latter category, so don't sell yourself short by saying it can't work.
Don't take this as a flame, but I've been hearing this for about 20 years now. And while there have been some great advances, nothing I'm aware of has come close to making the quantum necessary to make battery powered vehicles truly practical AND environmentally friendly. As far as I'm concerned, the waste problem associated with batteries is as big as nuclear waste without near the benefit. If there is something I don't know about I'd love to hear it.
It ran smoothly in my mind.
Yea I remember something similar being said about the "noise barrier" and recording technology in the recording industry about 20 years ago!
The "noise barrier" was a problem encountered when one Recording a copy of a copy of a copy! Each successive copy showed deterioration until all you heard was "White Noise" Many folks said that Dolby encoding was the end-all-be-all answer to recording and noise suppression and the "Physical Laws" would not allow any better signal processing!
Then came Digital technology and well, Now we can copy a digital recording as many times as we wish hell we even remaster OLD Analog recordings and make them better! Digital Recording is so mainstream now we even have a generation who never lived without it!
So I would be careful using the word "NEVER!" This guy may have worked around the Battery problem or maybe he increased the efficency of the motor, or maybe he has something that decreases the resistance of the electrical system!
I watched this machine in action and am amazed at what it did with what has to be a battery smaller than an average 12 volt car battery!
I really believe there is something more to Segway than a 2 wheeled scooter!
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