I don’t really have a good sense of balance, as I know from playing on the WiiFit Balance Board. I don’t think that I could stand on a ball for too long, but this Ballbot, as it is called, seems to do a very good job of it.
Apparently, there was a larger version of this robot made a while ago, but this one is designed to be on the desktop, kind of like a toy. You can see a video of it after the jump.
As you can see, this guy can sit on an ordinary ball with treaded wheels that can somehow keep its balance. This DIY contraption has a tiny joystick of a controller that allows its user to steer it in certain directions, and pushing lightly on the ballbot doesn’t seem to be knocking it off balance any.
Perhaps it is just me, but I am somewhat jealous of these robots that can do what I cannot do, such as maintain a perfect sense of balance. I think it is odd that we aren’t even really impressed that our machines can maintain a better sense of balance than infant children. I feel that since the Segway, we just haven’t been amazed at our technology’s sense of balance. It’s a real shame, actually.
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