Build a Self-Balancing Scooter
MIT teams up with local high school to tackle the Segway
by Shane Colton
During the summer of
2007, a small group of
undergraduates at the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) teamed up
with students from local high
schools to create a do-it-yourself
self-balancing scooter, similar in
design and function to the
Segway Personal Transporter.
The project was undertaken as
an off-season challenge for a
Cambridge, MA-based FIRST
Robotics Competition team, with
technical support from MIT’s
Edgerton Center. From start to
finish, the project took about
two months, including the
fabrication of a custom scooter
base and handlebar, installation
of motors, electronics, and
sensors, and the development of
software to control it all. The
end result — a self-balancing
scooter weighing only 53 pounds
and with a top speed of about
10 miles per hour — it’s not as
smooth or stable as the real
thing, but it offers a fun ride
nonetheless.
do, however, showcase considerable creativity and ambition on
the part of their designers.
The students involved in
the Segway project at MIT —
representing Cambridge Rindge
& Latin School, Wayland High
School, and the John D.
O’Bryant School of Math and
Science — hatched the idea
while competing at the 2007
FIRST Robotics Championship in
Atlanta, GA. The Segway’s
inventor, Dean Kamen, is also
the founder of the FIRST
competition, and event staff
are often seen riding Segway
scooters around the FIRST
competition arena.
After getting a chance to
ride one and seeing that
another team had built their
own version, members of the
Cambridge team became
intrigued with the idea of
building a DIY Segway as an
off-season project. A second
project idea — an interactive
water fountain — was also briefly
considered, but rejected by the team after one member
astutely pointed out that “you can’t ride a fountain.”
The completed scooter in action.
Project Inspiration
Designing the Scooter
Since its commercial release in 2001, the Segway has
become a niche transportation device and something of an
icon among the tech-savvy. A handful of industrious hobbyists
have been inspired to make similar devices, including both
scooters and riderless self-balancing robots. Among these,
a design created by roboticist Trevor Blackwell in 2002 (and
refined in 2005) is perhaps the most well known. His
creation and other Segway imitations are often touted as
being cheaper versions of the real thing, primed to usher in
the “Model T” era of personal transportation. In reality,
most are far from finished production models, lacking the
reliability, safety, and comfort of the original. These projects
74 SERVO 12.2008
Since other self-balancing scooters had come before it,
the group set a few goals for making their version unique.
To begin with, it would be smaller and lighter than those
that had been done before: only about 50 pounds and
small enough to drive through residential doorways. (Many
of the previous homemade scooters had failed the “
doorway test.”) Additionally, the team decided that its version
would be the first to implement “lean steering,” a feature
that allows the riders of the newest Segway models to turn
more intuitively by leaning the handlebar rather than
twisting a control knob. And since the DIY Segway would
