Segway Made from Lego Robot Kit Using Light Sensor For Balance

[kkleiner]

http://singularityhub.com/2010/02/23/segway-made-from-lego-robot-kit-works-without-a-gyro-video/

[yellowbkpk]

I built a copy of the legway [0] 10+ years ago with the original Mindstorms kit. It was pretty darn cool and behaved a whole lot better (no drift) than this one. I even modified it to read a remote control so I could control its forward/backward/turning movements.

[0] http://www.teamhassenplug.org/robots/legway/

[regularfry]

Looks like he needs to work on his drift a little, but otherwise this is really dinky. By which I mean neat. By which I mean I'm off to buy some Lego.

[bkudria → regularfry]

The drift, I think, is because he did not start the bot perfectly balanced. It has no gyroscope, so it's not correcting towards up, it's correcting to the initial light level when the program boots.

[JoeAltmaier]

Not really a segway; not even close. Just a feedback control loop in a cute demonstration model.

[almost → JoeAltmaier]

That's right! You can't even ride it!! And just you try playing segway polo on it!!!! Useless!!!!!! ;)

[JoeAltmaier → almost]

Let me clarify: Segway innovated thru dynamic control systems that kept it stable through a wide range of speed, attitude and control inputs. To label something a "Segway" and then find out its just a simple feedback control loop is something like bait-and-switch. I felt the article title over-sold the actual article. Kind of like those highway signs that claim "biggest ball of string in Minnesota". I felt cheated when I saw it.