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The Uno in the Uno Cave.
A couple of years ago a young man from just outside of Toronto, Canada went on a trip to China, and what he saw there inspired the coolest, greenest motorcycle yet to be invented. Ben J. Poss Gulak observed congested urban streets, where thousands of small vehicles filled the air with smog.
“The entire time I was there, I didn’t see the sun once; the skies were perpetually covered in smog,” he recalls. “Looking back,” he adds, “I guess I’ve always had an interest in eco-minded transportation technology.”
Gulak’s Uno was designed on the idea that one wheel would be easier to maneuver through crowded streets than two, but what he eventually went with is more comparable to a Segway than a unicycle: two tandem wheels provide more stability, creating a dicycle, which allows riders to intuitively navigate left and right as each of the two wheels adjust to compensate for the shift in weight.
The Uno has two microgyros (the Segway only utilizes one), one for front and back stability, the other for side to side. The only instrument on the machine is the on/off switch; everything else is controlled by the rider’s movement, which makes for an interesting first ride, to say the least (Gulak’s first spin ended in a serious crash). Not to worry, though: the Uno has since been made safer and easier to control.
The technique is simple enough – lean forward to accelerate, lean back to slow down. By sitting upright a rider can easily balance in one spot. But, as utilitarian as it is, it has the look of a crotch rocket, and, if the prototype wasn’t orange, it could easily be something driven by the Green Goblin.
Gulak has already demonstrated the Uno on Tonight Show with Jay Leno, who is also a cycle enthusiast. He also won the “most marketable award” at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and made the number one spot in Popular Science Magazine’s “Top Ten Inventions,” which included a cover photo. In an ironic twist, Gulak invented the Uno while being waitlisted for MIT. He has since enrolled, however, and is expected to graduate in 2012.
The young entrepreneur was heavily influenced by his grandfather, “Opa” Werner Poss, an inventor himself with a complete machine shop in his house. When Poss died, he left his entire workshop to Gulak, which has facilitated the younger inventor’s work and ambition.
The Uno runs on wheelchair motors, and is entirely electric. Gulak had some trouble with the electrical aspects, resulting in a few fires, and elicited help from Veltronics, Ltd., an electrical engineering company in Brampton, Ontario, on the circuitry. He also received some assistance from Trevor Blackwell, inventor of the Eunicycle, which incorporates a gyro control system to stay upright.
One of the key values of the Uno is its virtue of extreme accomodation. Weighing a mere 120 lbs, it can be carried indoors, and even into elevators. It can even be charged from a regular plug-in outlet.
As urban areas like San Francisco, where scooters are already a hugely popular substitute for cars and public transportation, become more and more densely populated, it’s safe to say alternative vehicles like the Uno will become more and more common in the metropolitan landscape.
So, where can you get one? Nowhere just yet, sadly. Gulak is focusing on his school work at MIT, and who can blame him? The fundamental tech is figured out." he says. "It just needs the right people to tweak it." It's clear that the young talent prefers to focus on increasing his knowledge of the mechanics, and let someone else worry about sales and distribution. Good for him.
Still, I want my Uno ASAP, and will follow up as soon as the Uno has been made accesible to the public.
For more info: Watch this YouTube video
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