Self-balancing

Pretty much all of the fantastic inventions from YouTube creator James Bruton are bizarre engineering oddities. But when the former toy maker says that one of his wacky omnidirectional rides "behaves weirdly" – a closer look is definitely warranted.

In 25 years of riding scooters, I've never really been excited about this category of two-wheelers until now. And at the moment, a Chinese upstart called Omoway has got me especially hot and bothered with its self-balancing Omo X.

San Francisco mobility company Lit Motors has announced a new production plan for its self-balancing, fully-enclosed C-1 electric motorcycle. We got to see a functioning prototype for ourselves, back in 2021.

LimX launched a versatile bipedal robot last year with modular foot ends to walk or roll around as needed. Now the company has demonstrated its agility chops by having the squat bot hop over low fencing, climb stairs and clear obstacles with aplomb.

Honda has announced a concept bike that's modeled after Koraidon, Pokémon Scarlet's prehistoric dragon. In addition to looking crazy cool, the Koraidon bike will be able to "stand" and walk, thanks to Honda's proprietary self-balancing technology.

James Bruton is a serial crazy-contraption inventor, from a Lego longboard to a self-balancing mecanum-wheeled "Screw bike." Now he's done it again with might be the most bizarre, big-red-balled self-balancing electric bike with five motors to power it.

While there are now a few different companies that build self-balancing one-wheeled electric skateboards, Future Motion was one of the very first. The California-based firm has just announced the latest addition to its lineup, the small but mighty Pint S.

Country folk tend to like the independence offered by their cars, so how do you get them to use public transit? The Monocab system may be the answer, as it utilizes individual on-demand pods that travel on existing abandoned railways.

Inspired by the wheel-bodied battle droids from Star Wars, a scientist has created a robot that rolls along on one big wheel, using its legs to steer. Instead of smashing the Rebel Alliance, however, this bot may one day be making deliveries.

Should you ever have wondered who invented the self-balancing "hoverboard" … well, it was a man named Shane Chen. He has now incorporated that same technology into a design for a two-wheeled electric car, appropriately named the Shane.

While quadruped robots may surpass their wheeled counterparts at traversing rough terrain, they still aren't able to move along narrow ridges. That could change, though, as scientists have devised a method of allowing them to walk on a balance beam.

We've seen fast, nimble, self-balancing wheeled robots, plus we've also seen robots that can grasp and carry objects. The evoBOT could prove to be particularly useful, however, as it combines both traits in one clever machine.