Segway from KOP?

[whytheheckme]

Looking at this guy's site:

http://tlb.org/scooter.html

and the stuff he used, a DIY segway could be built completely from the KOP (except maybe some of the frame.)

Going down the list:

Motors	 Brushless servo motors with neodymium magnets. "The highest-power motors for their size and weight ever put into mass production".	 Conventional DC motors with gearbox, widely used in powered wheelchairs. $286 each from National Power Chair or from Robot MarketPlace.

CIMs

Gearbox	 "Like a precision Swiss watch". Engineers designed the "meshes in the gearbox to produce sound exactly two musical octaves apart."	 Part of the wheelchair motor above. When going up a ramp, they sound kind of like the starter motor on my old Dodge Dart. Rrrrr-rrrr-rrrr-rrrr.

Banebots planetary

Batteries	 2, 60-cell custom-designed NiMH packs producing 72 volts. "the highest power of any currently available chemistry".	 20, 6-cell NiMH packs made for RC cars. They have "IDEAL SOLUTION FOR RC TOY" printed on them.$15 each from Powerizer.

Robot battery (maybe something smaller would be needed)

Wheels	 Wheels are "sophisticated engineering-grade thermoplastic." Tires by Michelin, with a "unique tread compound (a silica-based compound instead of traditional carbon-based materials)".	 Wheels are stamped steel. I think they're made for utility trailers. Tires made by Cheng Shin tire works. They make startlingly loud squelching sounds on tile floors. Tire and wheel are $79 each from NPC, and hubs are $20 each.

KOP wheels should work, maybe something bigger?

Controller	 "Sophisticated controller boards from Delphi Electronics" with "Texas Instruments digital signal processor, monitoring the entire Segway HT system and checking 100 times per second."	 An 8-bit microcontroller from Atmel, running code written in C using floating point arithmetic. It sends speed control commands out the serial port at 9600 baud in ASCII to the motor driver. $10 from Digikey.

FRC controller would be overkill. VEX controller could be used. 
Or spend 10 bux for this controller (the problem with this would be the lack of interface for the Victors, whereas FRC or VEX would work directly)

Motor Driver	 "a set of 12 high-power, high-voltage field-effect transistors (FETs)".	 The controller has 16 MOSFETs and can handle way more current than my batteries can supply. Made by RoboteQ, it's $485 from Robot MarketPlace. It's a popular part for use in Battlebots.

IFI Victors

Gyroscope	 "packed with five solid-state, vibrating-ring, angular-rate sensors"	 One ceramic rate gyro, of the same kind that's in your camcorder (to detect your hand jiggling and stabilize the video) or RC helicopter (to stabilize the tail), and a 2-axis accelerometer to correct for drift. $149 from Rotomotion complete with the Atmel microcontroller.

KOP gyro

Structure	 Plastic and aluminum in smooth swooping shapes. "Chassis withstands 7 tons of force."	 Two pieces of aluminum plate with holes drilled in them, and a standard aluminum extrusion for the handle.

KOP metal could be used, probably other stuff would be needed though.

Safety features	 Everything is dual redundant. For example, "in the unlikely event of a battery failure, the system is designed to use the second battery to operate the machine and allow it to continue balancing until it is brought to a safe stop."	 There is no redundancy or backup system. It is not even robustly made. Loose wires literally dangle out the bottom. In the fairly likely event of the software crashing, a wire coming loose, a component failing, or the batteries running low, the wheels will stop and the entire kinetic energy of the system will be used to accelerate my head toward the ground.

Not sure about this one :p 

Just an idea

Jacob

[synth3tk]

Hehe, we could have an off-season KOP Segway event!!! We've got all the parts from our robots since we started in 2002, so a few bucks here and there and we could make a couple.

[EHaskins]

http://web.mit.edu/first/segway/

They didn't use a VEX or FRC controller, but its mostly KOP parts.

[TomBot]

Its been done before. Why not use those parts to build an eco-friendly racing kart? That way you can be green and fun.

Why is everyone on these boards so obsessed with Segways?

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Why is everyone on these boards so obsessed with Segways?

Theory 0: Something about that guy who invented it.
Theory 1: It's a semi-interesting software challenge.
Theory 2: FIRSTers are exposed to Segways far more than the general public, but many lack the funds to purchase one. Since all high schoolers are invincible*, the safety and redundancy features of the Segway don't quite justify the added cost over building it themselves.
Theory 3: The amount of parts people are able to liberate from a team's cache may be suited more to a two-wheeled form of transportation.
Theory 4: We're used to skid-steer robots. The theory transfers somewhat to Segways, without any pesky steering.

* </sarcasm>

Personally, I'm waiting for a team to make their competition robot use Segway-esque drive.

[TomBot]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Personally, I'm waiting for a team to make their competition robot use Segway-esque drive.
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That would be cool, no doubt.

Maybe its just me, but I wouldn't be able to put so much work into something that's been done before. I wish anyone who tries this the best of luck though; I'm sure its implementation is much more challenging than it looks.

[colin340]

http://tlb.org/eunicycle.html

ditch the other wheel