The Segway may be a technological wonder, but motorized balancing transportation has been around for a while. We've gathered up some of our favorite motorized unicycles for your knee scraping enjoyment.
The design above makes us immediately think of the very recent wonder by [Ben Gulak] that earned him the cover of Popular Science. Strangely enough, when reading about [Ben] we didn't see any mention of Noah. Designed by [Andre Franca] of Brazil, it won 2nd place in the Plascar Automotive Design Contest in 2007. The designs are extremely similar.
[scheerti] posted the mysterious wonder above on S-blog. It's in Hungarian though, so we'll just have to live in suspense until someone helps us out with the translation.
Bombardier, the maker of many popular recreational vehicles, released a design a while back. Unfortunately, they stated that it may never be produced. It has a unique "landing gear" system for parking. You can see it under the front fender in the left shot above. The EMBRIO was an exercise in design, showing what Bombardier envisions recreational vehicles to be like in the year 2025.
Not to be left out of the race, Audi has shown off a unique design. Designed by [Tilmann Schlootz] This award winning design incorporates a spherical wheel and multidirectional drive train. That means that this bad boy can go any direction while facing any direction. Check out the seating, it converts smoothly from one seat to two. Just imagine helping your date into the SNOOK for a night on the town.
If those others were too wild or fast for you, why not check out some more traditional models. Pictured above is [Trevor Blackwell]'s electric unicycle, which is pretty much exactly as it sounds. There is also the enicycle and the Einrad-Fahrzeug.
For a more rugged application,look at Le Monorue. It was designed by [Jackie Chabanais] who has also created a ton of other single wheeled vehicles.
Out on the fringe, you will find the Riot Wheel . Different from any other single wheel design out there, it defies classification. Built for a trip to Burning Man, it gained instant publicity and has since been featured on Discovery Channel's Monster Nation. While we're talking about different ones, check out Leviskate. You stand on it like a skateboard... or at least try.
Lets not forget about good old [Dean Kamen], the inventor of the Segway. He's filed a patent for a single wheeled version too. Unlike the Segway, this one comes with a seat!