The Segwii

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYUm3V1NSAM&eurl=http://segwii.com/]

The Segwii is a self balancing robot. Yes, another one, only this one can be controlled via WiiMote. The Segwii can function in stand alone mode, which offers only the ability to balance, or it can be tethered. When tethered via USB to the laptop, it can be remotely controlled using the WiiMote through processing.  Sadly, the video above doesn’t show any WiiMote action. Lets hope they continue the work to incorporate a direct bluetooth connection to the bot.

This one seems to be pretty sturdy, though he does mention that temperature changes can throw off the internal gyroscope. This one seems to be similar to the Arduway in terms of how smoothly it keeps balance. The miniature balancing robot has them both beat for pure goofyness though.

8 thoughts on “The Segwii

  1. Holy Cow! I’m on Hack-A-Day!

    Well, just wanted to update that the wiimote control is functioning, but there is a big problem. The motors I am using do not give feedback to the controller, so moving around is not working right now. Also if the plane on which it’s balancing is not level (within a certain tolerance) it falls over.

    I have a separate bot (Arduino based) that I made today that has 3 wheels and is controllable via wiimote. I wanted to take out the element of balance to show that the wiimote functionally works. I will post up a youtube on segwii.com tomorrow.

    I plan to buy new motors within the next week and have this working soon.

    If you have questions, don’t hold back! Take advantage of the forums too :)

  2. Yes it would be a good alternative to buy encoders and have them read off the wheels. I just rather get new motors and wheels (The lego ones aren’t the best choice) and if I had the encoder built in the Yahtzee! The point is that I want to move away from Legos (even though I love them). The next revision of the Segwii will have new motors w/ encoders and a new gyro that has a higher resolution with a temperature output.

  3. Correction, someone else posted it without me knowing until one of my friends emails me “Hey your on Hack-A-Day”.

    If you look, the code is there. http://www.segwii.com/code.html

    The problem is my hardware, and without encoders it’s going to be difficult. I could post a video of the segwii being commanded by the wiimote, but all you would see is the segwii move a bit to the direction being commanded, then it falling over.

    As soon as I get my encoders and new motors w/ gearbox, I’m going to finalize and release Version 2 of the code and hardware which will allow for turning, and full wiimote control. Maybe get a part 2 posted or something.

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