WANKEL'S COOL TEACHING IDEA OF THE DAY:
Segway Human Transporter case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/technology/03THIN.html?todaysheadlines
Student assignment: List 10 uninvented products and 10 uninvented
services that the Segway makes possible. Devise a business plan for the
one that you consider most outrageously wild. Explain in one page (12
pt. font) how such an outrageously wild business concept can be made to
succeed.
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feature, let me know. Also I heartily invite you to post comments on
this assignment or your own different cool assignments to Mg-Ed-Dv.
Cybercollaborating,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director
St. John's University, New York
wankel@stjohns.edu
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Video stream from abc.com:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA011203What_IT_i
s.html
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Excerpt from the Wall St. Journal online, December 2, 2001, "After
Months Of Hype, `Ginger' Scooter Revealed":
After Months Of Hype, `Ginger' Scooter Revealed :
According to those who have ridden it, the scooter is difficult to fall
from or knock over due to gyroscopes that work to keep it upright and
discern where the rider wants to go. Speed and direction are controlled
by the rider's shifting weight.
Riders stand upright, facing forward over the invention's single axle,
navigating with a bicycle-like handlebar. A single battery charge can
propel the scooter 17 miles over level ground, with each hour of charge
providing power for two hours' use, Time reported.
The U.S. Postal Service, General Electric (GE) and National Parks
Service will be the first customers to purchase them, buying 80-pound
heavy-duty models for $8,000 apiece, according to the magazine.
The Postal Service plans to test 20 Segways on mail routes in Concord,
N.H., and Fort Myers, Fla., starting in January, in hopes of enabling
carriers to cover more ground, according to a report on The New York
Times' Web site.
The City of Atlanta plans to use several dozen starting in February in
an effort to reduce emissions and traffic congestion, the Times said.
A 65-pound $3,000 consumer model won't be available for at least a year.
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Excerpt from New York Times, December 3, 2001, "An Inventor Unveils His
Mysterious Personal Transportation Device," by Amy Harmon:
....
Mr. Kamen plans to demonstrate today a two-wheeled battery-powered
device designed for a single standing rider. Its chief novelty lies in
the uncanny effect, produced by a finely tuned gyroscopic balancing
mechanism, of intuiting where its rider wants to go - and going there.
The device, the Segway Human Transporter, better known by its former
code- name, Ginger, can go up to 12 miles an hour and has no brakes. Its
speed and direction are controlled solely by the rider's shifting weight
and a manual turning mechanism on one of the handlebars.
"You might ask, `How does it work?' " said Mr. Kamen, mounting one of
the devices last week on a test track at his company's headquarters in
Manchester, N.H. "Think forward," he said, inclining his head ever so
slightly and zooming toward a reporter. "Think back," he continued,
effortlessly reversing course.
Tilt sensors monitor the rider's center of gravity more than 100 times a
second, signaling to the electric motor and wheels which way to turn and
how fast.
....
The United States Postal Service, the National Park Service and the City
of Atlanta plan to begin limited field tests of the devices early next
year. Amazon.com (news/quote) and several companies that make parts for
the Segway, including GE Plastics and Michelin North America, plan to
use the devices to try to save money by reducing the time it takes
employees to move around corporate campuses and large warehouses.
At an average speed of 8 miles an hour, or three times walking pace, Mr.
Kamen says the Segway can go 15 miles on a six- hour charge, for less
than a dime's worth of electricity from a standard wall socket.
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Excerpt from cnn.com:
....
The Segway, initially known only as its code names "IT" and "Ginger,"
"will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy," Kamen told
Time magazine for Monday's edition. "Cars are great for going long
distances. But it makes no sense at all for people in cities to use a
4,000-pound piece of metal ..."
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Time.com has flash interactive chart explaining how it works.
Other excerpt from there:
"Now, stop," Kamen says. How? This thing has no brakes. "Just think
about stopping." Staring into the middle distance, I conjure an image of
a red stop sign--and just like that, Ginger and I come to a halt.
"Now think about backing up." Once again, I follow instructions, and
soon I glide in reverse to where I started. With a twist of the wrist, I
pirouette in place, and no matter which way I lean or how hard, Ginger
refuses to let me fall over. What's going on here is all perfectly
explicable--the machine is sensing and reacting to subtle shifts in my
balance--but for the moment I am slack-jawed, baffled. It was Arthur C.
Clarke who famously observed that "any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic." By that standard, Ginger is advanced
indeed.