Taking Aim at Segway

Trevor Blackwell has built his own balancing scooter (similar to a segway scooter).

Take a look at Blackwell’s web page. The first thing you’ll notice is that his scooter looks a lot like a Segway. The second thing you’ll notice is that he’s built it a lot cheaper than Segway managed to do.

Blackwell is a Silicon Valley engineer and not out to make a buck on this technology — he’s just having fun. Perhaps also for that reason, he’s willing to admit that riding these new scooters isn’t terribly comfortable (although he does say that the Segway scooter feels more solid and less mushy than his, probably beacuse they use superior materials and have done a whole lot more R&D).

Really, though, I wonder how many of Segeway’s patents this guy is violating. And if he isn’t, I wonder if he’ll be able to sell his design.

(Thanks to PCW for telling me about this one.)