Weird.
Bet it’s easy to find a parking spot.
[quote=“wheels”]A Milton teenager is garnering international attention for his cool-looking invention, an electric unicycle called Uno that started as a science fair project.
The environmentally friendly Uno was featured on this month’s cover of Popular Science magazine as one of the top 10 inventions of the year.
[…]
Smaller than a motorcycle, the Uno uses two wheels side by side to provide stability while the rider shifts weight to accelerate, stop and turn.
The inspiration for the road bike came during a family trip to China, where Gulak was struck by the pollution and overcrowding.
Gulak called his invention the Uno “because it has a European flavour and it does mean `the one.’ When you look at it from the side, it does look like there’s only one wheel. And it could be a solution to global warming, if you want to stretch it that far.”
[…]
While the bike didn’t win top prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in New Mexico last year, it was judged to have the “most marketability” and Gulak has run with that ever since.
He put off going to university for one year while he threw everything he had – and about $50,000 of his parents’ money – into reworking the bike, getting all the bugs out and ensuring it had a look that would attract potential riders.
“We are such a visual society; people aren’t going to want to do it unless it looks cool,” says Gulak, adding he’s hoping it will sell for an affordable $6,000. [/quote]
motorcycle mojo
It’s not a unicycle. It’s got two wheels (albeit side-by-side).
I know, I’m splitting hairs. Looks cool. Must be hard to handle though, no?
it’s a unicycle, or at least a uniAXLE, which for all intents and purposes is pretty much the same deal.
segway on steroids? but the axle : diameter ratio is far smaller than a segway, so it has the same handling characteristics as a unicycle, i’d bet. emergency stops would be fun… NOT. but parking would be easy. and no indicators or lights or mirrors or speedometer to worry about, so it should do just fine in Taipei.
edit: on second look, it does seem to have lights and a space for an instrument panel. still no mirrors or indicators, so still fine for this crazy traffic mess.
I’m not sure if it is actually uni-axle, btw. I have a feeling there may be two axles, one inside the other, or side-by-side. Otherwise, I don’t see why there are two wheels. Certainly won’t make it easy going round corners if both the wheels go the same speed, especially since the fact that there are two side-by-side makes it difficult to tilt the bike sideways in the same way as a real bike (uni- or bi-).
ooh, getting technical here, stu! i think i have to concede the first point to you.
is a pair of coaxial axles still counted as one axle, or two? we don’t really know enough to say one way or another, i guess. two wheels can go around corners by weight transfer alone, but less efficiently than by spinning one faster than the other. using two motorcycle-style wheels is an easy and lighter way to get added stability without going to a super wide square profile wheel, like a car wheel.
having two co-axial half axles would allow you to pick one up an inch or two to give you the lean angle needed to facilitate or promote directional changes, and also allow you to spin the wheels at different rates. looks wide enough for a pair of motors, too.
OK, i got curious… link at motorcycle mojo (see OP)
there are two electric motors, one for each wheel.
but it does not look like independent axles for lean adjustment.
rather, the compliance in the tyres allow for some lean
and weight transfer, plus a gyroscope stabiliser system for forward/rear tilt and for steering, perhaps coupled with differential spin rates for L/R wheels (though the article does not mention this) does the rest…
looks like fun!
oh, and the protoype does have mirrors that are lacking in the show bike.
Look at the snow in the background of those photos. Can you imagine breaking on ice with that thing?
that really looks like fun !!! and i think a good solution for the corners is to have a single wheel but wider, maybe a 200 or a 210 or even more… it would make harder to control the stability, but ones its done i am sure that it has to be great !!! just like some manga cartoons from japan !!!
Seriously though, how do you brake without going over the handlebars? Do the wheels move forward under the chassis or something?
big fat gyroscopes, like the segway brakes with (or at least shifts weight backward before it brakes).
but yes, emergency stops would be fun!
on a future version of the bike i think that they should install some kind of air turbine in the front to balance the bike on heavy braking… that would be the version in … 20 years maybe…
personal hovercraft would be safer. and you could use it to mow the lawn on sundays.
[quote=“urodacus”]personal hovercraft would be safer. and you could use it to mow the lawn on sundays.[/quote]I don’t get that. Wouldn’t the hovercraft blow the grass away from the blades?
ever used a flymo?
70s/80s brand of lawnmower without wheels, which sucked air in and floated yet still managed a decent cut.
from Wiki:
The Flymo hover mower was invented by Karl Dahlman in 1964 after seeing Sir Christopher Cockerell’s Hovercraft machine. “Flymo” is a brand name of the Swedish company Husqvarna AB, formerly a part of Electrolux.
Flymo mowers are powered rotary push lawn mowers that use a turbine above the spinning blades to drive air downwards, thereby creating an air cushion that lifts the mower off the ground like a hovercraft. The operator can then easily move the mower as it floats over the grass. Hover mowers are necessarily light in order to achieve the air cushion and typically have plastic bodies with an electric motor. A different style of movement is often employed with hover mowers whereby operators swing the mower in an arc around themselves because there are no wheels touching the ground to impede movement in sideways directions.
Long grass
The mowers can also be applied to very long grass and even light scrub, since their lightness permits most operators to lift the mower up and then let it sink slowly down while the blades progressively chop up the vegetation. The lifting action is made even easier when the mower is swung around with the handle held against the operator’s mid-body to provide leverage. Flymo has also sold various lawn tractors and push mowers, among other lawn & garden equipment.
http://www.oldlawnmowerclub.co.uk/%20moms/mom70-flymo.htm
man, why do i do this? only for you, jaboney!