Self Balancing Gyroscope on Two Inline Wheels

This gyro is self balancing but with no forward motion. Please see my version 5 for a complete balanced and motorized vehicle.
Warning: cd rotors are very dangerous, mine was cracked and exploded. If you must build one, wear safety glasses or you may end up blind.
Built this simple self-balancing two wheeler model using a dc motor, 4 cds as a gyroscope rotor and an acrylic ruler and wood frame. You will have to watch the video to find out the secret to balancing with a gyro.

I also tried attaching two parallel wheels (also did inline wheels) but it just wants to spin in a circle and when I try to move it in the direction of the wheels it falls over easily unless I push very slowly. I suppose motorized wheels will work but without some active dynamic balancing mechanism it would be pretty susceptible to falling.

Update 5/19/2006: discovered that with free precession the mass of the rotor does not have to be as high as when doing forced precession where it must be much higher to maintain it's balance.
More details at http://letsmakerobots.com/content/gyr...

You can actually make a motor/rotor gyroscope balance itself on two legs without any gimbal control – just by making the rotor or motor the heavier side of the motor/rotor pair. By being top heavy in a vertical axis gyroscope or one side heavy in a horizontal axis gimbal, it will correct itself as it falls to one side or the other. Also I have calculated and measured the total gyroscope weight to torque produced by the gyroscope and found that it is a 26% ratio – in other words the total gyroscope weight needs to be 26% of the torque produced by the gyroscope (can be calculated at gyroscopes.org/maths) to be able to keep itself balanced on two legs. Interesting stuff!
Here is a great little booklet on the theory of self balancing a vehicle by Mori Hiroshi: https://thebbb.net/free/theories-and-...

My free ebook to help you construct your own vehicle:
https://demej00.wordpress.com/2020/02...