Looks like something that should have been in iRobot.

Why even have two balls? Why not just a single ball...er...like a unicycle? What happens when the ball sucks up a piece of road debris and jams inside the drive mechanism?

Why don't we apply electro osmotic pressure like earth worms do to the spherical wheels

What happens when it gets wet? Its friction based and slippery balls are not desirable for friction driven systems. How will you take a bend? In essence one of the joys of biking is the lean to turn. on balls that are trying to keep you upright you will then transfer the inertia to your head as you try taking a nice fast bend while sitting upright. To make this thing anything better than a curiosity would mean absolute control of driving the ball without using a frictive system.

Heavy, expensive, and no traction in the rain. If i was the professor I would have tried to keep it from ever seeing the light of day even if I did give the students good grades.

I bet those ball-tires would be useful in warehouses where there's not always a clear path to move around. Put a couple on a platform and use it to carry loads around piles of stuff in storage. I've worked in a warehouse before and something like that would have been a whole lot easier to work with than a standard pallet jack.

Absolutely awesome. It could do nothing but putt around in the lab & it would still be cool!
Think of this little mod...turn that whole passager carriage 90 degrees, drop it a few inches & roll between the spheres instead of parallel. Make it so!
Very appealing design, hats off to ya

Forward Thinker, my thoughts exactly. this would be great for use on a forklift.

Quote: "Heavy, expensive, and no traction in the rain. If i was the professor I would have tried to keep it from ever seeing the light of day even if I did give the students good grades." -Pikeman
Reduction in weight is eminent. This is a prototype designed to demonstrate the concept and tech. Pricing depends on many things. Most times the result is a far LESS expensive solution than the prototype. If they want to market it as a product, they will make it a fair deal. Traction in the rain may seem like a design fault, but you're forgetting that this design isn't a real-world design. Its sole purpose is to demonstrate the concept/tech. Motors that are capable of spinning at a much higher rpm, can and will offer a better basis for real-world applications.
And simply because you think something is not going to work, doesn't give you the right to cap people's ideas. I can think hundreds of implementations for the current model and you're lacking the capacity to think of one. Heck, you even have the audacity to say "If i was the professor I would have tried to keep it from ever seeing the light of day even if I did give the students good grades", the very moment where this design got such a good response. I can't help but wonder how many brilliant ideas where forever lost because of your inability to recognise them.

impressive technology, even if the bike is flawed. One thought occurs to me - could this be developed into an ultra mobile wheelchair using a single ball device?