Sharokat with an ambiguous name

As is known, monowheels balance only on one axis. This is not a serious disadvantage, learning is not more difficult than cycling, and takes minutes at best, at worst a few hours. But many have seen the seventh episode of "Star Wars" with a bouncy BB-8 droid moving on a ball, or they know about the existence of sharbots in reality. Therefore, quite often, when it comes to monowheels, the idea of ​​balancing a vehicle along two axes comes to mind. And an inventor appeared who made a sharokat or a vehicle self-balancing on one ball with an ambiguous eBall name for the Russian ear.

UAVs

The word "sharobot" may be unfamiliar to someone, therefore I will allow myself a little digression to the side. In the 20th century, robots were made, as a rule, statically stable; when turned off, they quietly stood on at least three wheels, legs or other supports. The task of the inverse pendulum, which allows to maintain an unstable equilibrium, was solved by the control systems of the launch vehicles, and because of the cost they were far from domestic use. But in the 21st century, the availability of microelectronics allowed the creation of compact and cheap control systems, and enthusiasts began to experiment. The first robot who learned to continuously balance on the ball is called the 2004 Ballbot.


But it is better to explain the construction of a scarab on, for example, Rezero 2010:
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It is very simple to arrange a scarabot - a ball is used as a single wheel. It is driven by at least three engines, the axes of rotation of which can be located both along the meridians and along the latitudes (in other words, vertically or horizontally). On top are the battery and control system.

There are domestic sharaboty, here, for example, the publication on Habré, but the video from there:

eBall

The popularity of the sharbots greatly increased the chances that someone would try to make a vehicle on this principle. Such a pioneer was Uli Sambet (Uli Sambeth) from Essen (Germany), who founded the startup Innovated Transport Systems. After spending two years developing it, he showed a prototype in October of this year at a toy exhibition in Nuremberg. By analogy with the scarabot, I decided to call the device a scam.



In an interview with local television, Uli says that he is looking for partners for further development, and the shown version is not final. And the journalist, most likely, was able to go on the first attempt. In the network you can find another video, which explains how to start on the sharokat, and its maximum speed is called 10-12 km / h. However, at the exhibition Uli calls the maximum speed already 20 km / h. Other parameters of the device are unknown, but yesterday you could find a PDF with Google technical specifications on the official website, which indicated a power reserve of 10 km. And on the official website collect pre-orders for 949 euros.



Another video shows the work of adaptive illumination and a surprisingly good passability of the sharokat on the ground and small curbs.

Chances of success

A comparison of a sharokat with a monowheel is quite interesting:

Advantages:

• Can stand still.
• Practically does not require training.
• More maneuverable.
• Indirect drive to the ball allows better waterproofing engines.

Disadvantages:

• Lower speed. Drive for 30 km / h on it is unlikely to succeed.
• Lower patency.
• The range of travel for a battery of the same capacity is likely to be less.
• Less compact and worse combined with public transport.
• Three engines instead of one, and less powerful.
• Ball slippage reduces the theoretical maximum power.

In general, it was a very curious unit. I firmly believe that the monowheel is one of the modes of transport of the future, but I cannot say the same about the sharokat. It is most likely that he will occupy his small niche at the level of an entertainment or recreational device. The main competitor for eBall will be a hoverboard, their speed, range, maneuverability and the almost complete absence of the need to learn how to ride make them. But giroskutery while several times cheaper. However, it is difficult to talk about the price before the start of mass production. I would like to hope that Uli will find investors for himself and someday, even for fun, we will be able to ride on eBall. Because the sharokat has the same wonderful property as the monowheel - they are controlled by the body in such a way that it seems as if you are moving solely by the power of thought.