Snakeboard |
|
 |
Eric Faulring and Marin Zimbru built a "snakeboard", a mobile platform which is driven by a reaction wheel. The front and rear wheel are steered oppositely, so that the snakeboard always follows an arc. None of the wheels are driven; motive power comes from spinning up and then reversing a flywheel, in synchrony with steering, so that the platform "slithers". (click photos to enlarge) |
 |
The side wheels keep the snakeboard from falling over, and also monitor groundspeed. |
 |
All control and communication is done in analog, so that the wirecount of the umbilical can be kept to a minimum. Shown here is a plastic pot that measures the steering angle of the front wheel. |
 |
A printed circuit board contains analog PID controllers for steering angle and, decoder/counters and DACs for the ground speed monitors and for the flywheel speed. |
 |
Motor amplifiers and a control and communication circuit board are piled on top. |
 |
At present, the steering angle and the reaction wheel velocity are controlled by a manual two axis joystick. Soon they will be computer controlled - stay tuned. |
 |
An 8-second avi video of an early attempt by Eric Faulring to drive the snakeboard manually. |