Going Forward

By Jerry Pournelle

May 19, 2003

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Column 274 (Continued from the Previous Week)

Dean Kamen

Dean Kamen is the inventor of the Segway, which was not all that long ago proclaimed the most significant invention in a decade, one that would remake cities and change all our lives. That furor seems to have died away.

The rumor was that Bill Gates would come in on a Segway, but he walked onto the stage for his speech. Then he introduced Dean Kamen of DEKA, and Kamen did roll in. If you are one of the few who haven't seen a picture of a Segway, imagine two wheels side by side with a platform between them. Add a steering/control handlebar at about waist height connected with a shaft to the platform. Add also a basket for your briefcase.

You use the Segway by standing on it. If you lean forward it goes forward. If you lean back it goes back. If you can stand perfectly still it will stand still, but in fact no one can be perfectly still for long—certainly I couldn't—so the tendency is to rock back and forth and as you do, the machine moves back and forth. Steering is done with the handlebar, but not through turning the handlebars: It's done with a small rocker button on one of the grips. I found it quite intuitive the time I used one.

The Segway is interesting, but it's very distracting. Kamen was never still during his disquisition on innovation. He rocked back and forth, and for variety turned from side to side, the original peripatetic professor assaulted by fire ants.

His speech on innovation was interesting, but it was more like the kind of thing you get from a motivational speaker than what you expect in a technical conference.

Much of his speech concerned the FIRST "robotics" contest (they are actually teleoperated systems) in which High School teams try to construct machines that then compete. I was keynote speaker at a similar contest held at NASA Ames several years ago. It's a lot of fun, and it gets a number of students interested in science, mechanics, electricity, and engineering.

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