Segway Scooter needs new innovations Update because, despite all the hype, it lacks the latest and greatest technological advances and doesn’t impress everyone. The Segway team? Come on, get the latest technology, will you? Regarding this idea:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/754336.asp?cp1=1
These guys are brilliant, to be sure, but we could send them back to the drawing board in no time for limiting their ideas. Let’s start with its most basic component, namely “The Wheel” is an old component and if you want to build something revolutionary, build it without wheels and without touching the ground and without recharging. It can be designed better. Here is how. Take Bruce DePalma’s perpetual motion machine for power, so by adding such a feature you wouldn’t need to recharge and without the wheels you could move more weight faster with less power. As you say? Well, first of all, use hydro-damped technology like the one used in hoverboards. And think that you only want to move a human body of which we are talking about an average of 250 Lbs. To do this and keep the air below, place a small brush guard system under the device where it is located. Then blow 1-2 lbs. low pressure air below it. It takes almost no energy to lift 250 pounds or less. This will lift the thing off the ground.
So instead of wheels the thing is magical and floats, much better and more advanced too. Now place 18 small jets that move air in the intended direction of travel to the gyro or small circuit board which is a miniature laser ring gyro to prevent it from falling over as you steer it by changing your weight. When you spin by moving your body weight, the currency jets move you back and forth while the gyroscope moves them simultaneously. The system will prevent you from rolling over like the system on an F-16 that prevents pilots from turning too many G’s so the plane doesn’t take off or the pilot blacks out. Now you have a floating mobile with a gyroscope, it works exactly the same and does not need fuel. Like back to the future, huh? It works physically. I once knew the guy who built the first car with hydraulic suspension, it looked like a little flying saucer, he used to drive it in Los Angeles on the 101 freeway in the 1960s. He was paranoid that the establishment had gone after him because of his run-in with the large companies, General Motors and the automotive industry. I met him at Denny’s in Woodland Hills, CA in 1996. His technology now moves 100,000 Lbs. pallets with aircraft fuelalages on them during the production run in Everette WA. He also designed the hydrosprung bullet train which was never built, but was a project to take people to Las Vegas from Los Angeles on a high-speed train, which would prevent the trains from touching the ground. No friction means little wasted energy.
Someone should challenge the Segway team to keep innovating and not disrupting consumers. The unit needs to continue the technological trend to be the best, frankly it’s still not good enough and that’s a lot of VC to pay for yesterday’s technology even at $5,000 each. Am I too harsh on this wonderful invention? Oh, probably, but if the manufacturers aren’t willing to win and don’t put in the effort, then maybe we can help. We should challenge these guys, so they can build it better. Considering the wonderful publicity they’ve received, including the US President testing one, why can’t they be inspired to take this technology to the next level? This is 2003 after all, for crying out loud. Also, by adding my upgrades, it could also be used in water. It could cross a lake, rescue a sinking boat, it has a thousand other uses, you could even sweep your driveway with it. Or build a robotic one that hovers and sweeps for you?
I don’t want to be so judgmental, but if you have that kind of money to spend on venture capital, why can’t you build a better mousetrap?
