By now, you’ve probably seen countless videos of hilarious fails as people attempt to ride a smart balance board for the first time. You’ve probably seen some people riding it around in grocery stores for some obnoxious reason. And you’ve definitely seen celebrity after celebrity flaunting their new toy.
Smart balance boards, humanity’s answer to walking.
As if segways weren’t hard enough to ride, companies have come out with these self-balancing two-wheeled scooters designed to be our best friend or worst enemy. Judging by the massive amount of videos online about smart balance boards, they seem like a blast to ride – once you learn how to, of course.
Tip: Watching a video about someone failing on their board and then attempting it yourself will not make you a pro on a smart balance board. You will fall and the internet will laugh.
All jokes aside, how do smart balance boards work?
On top of every board are two pressure plates your feet rest on. That’s how you turn on the board. Unfortunately, this is where the videos start to come in. Stepping on the board too quickly means you won’t be properly balanced, which means your arms flail wildly as you crash to the ground.
A smart balance board has four scales in each corner which detects your center of gravity. It’s the brains of the board because it uses your weight to detect where you want to go. Leaning in any direction will make the board go in that direction. The more you lean, the faster it goes. Leaning backwards causes the board to slow down or stop.
It seems simple, right? Now let’s get technical.
A smart balance board gets to know your body as a way to properly gauge your center of gravity. The sensor system in a self-balance scooter is just a gyroscope, which is found in many of today’s smartphones. The gyro measures the point of pressure and applies the force on the opposite side to balance out the board.
Once the balancing in the board is complete, the circuit boards in the scooters kick in. Circuit boards are made up of microprocessors that control the entire board and the motor. Most boards have two circuit boards in them for redundancy. If one fails, the other one kicks in to keep the scooter running smoothly. It’s amazing how all of this happens in a matter of seconds.
You know that there’s more to a smart balance board than just stepping on to it and balancing. It’s 2015, and we may not have gotten hoverboards, but we got self-balancing boards designed to eliminate walking and make plenty of late-night appearances. Very impressive for this year’s biggest toy.
The post Smart Balance Boards: How Do They Work? appeared first on Portfolio Princess.