Self-Balancers
Self-balancing machines we have built and others from around the world
One wheeled skateboards and unicycles
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Two wheeled skateboards and chairs
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Nick Thatcher’s design study for ball scooter
The ‘Leango’ ball scooter from May 10, 2007
Scooters that balance on a ball
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“We do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
ABOUT US
We are hobbyists who have been building self-balancing machines since 2008
In 2007 a video appeared on YouTube of Ben Smithers riding a one wheeled self-balancing electric skateboard he had built. This was many years before they became commercially available. After that I was determined to build one and eventually succeeded in 2008 although that first one wasn’t very good! It did balance OK though. Since then I have built all manner of machines with one and two wheels to see what works and what doesn’t. You have to build and test, it can’t all be done on a computer. More recently I have been collaborating on electric unicycles with Nick Thatcher, in particular ones that change shape and so are steerable via handlebars rather than just by weight shifting. In 2018 he won an award for young industrial designers for the ball-bike he built.
These machines have a colourful history, almost like an adventure and I will cover this in a History page as I develop this website.
Ben Smithers riding his self balancing one-wheeled skateboard in 2007
John in full crash protection riding his first attempt at a one wheeled motorcycle.
Nick on our test beach in South Wales (UK).