Circumvent driving on the littlewheel in software, and then you don't need that complexity. Embed a small magnet instead at the end of the axle, and you can sense it on top when it aprroaches, and then change the rotation of the robot. No disadvantage for a mapping application.
@@Zoatsss Especially since it's what other modern things started out with as well (cars, house electrical systems, etc etc). Just took us plenty of time to turn something from "it's not great, but it works" to "it's workin pretty dang well", though I'd imagine it'd take many less decades by comparison considering how much more proficient our tech and computers are nowadays.
@@someguy9175 he said they were skateboard bearings. I doubt those would break first. Probably the plastic first since the geometry likely isn't strong enough to hold his weight in PLA
I wanted to say, "GIVE me that glue gun!!!". Then, after thinking about it, I realized that if this kid can design and actually build something like this, then he would surely know his way around a glue gun. It must have been humor.
The three balls on that frame would look really cool if it were to be used as an office chair! Also would be more convenient since wheels on office chairs tend to bind.
Office chairs tend to have 5 wheels because it makes it less likely that the chair can be leaned opposite one of the wheels and as a result is less easily tipped over. Yes, it binds a bit more than with fewer wheels, but it's significantly safer.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade I doubt they would stick to 3 wheels, 5 points of contact is a minimum for office chairs. I'm just worried about already inflated price
The worry that I hold is, when all of this technology is developed into mass market platforms manual driving would likely become illegal. Strafing is impractical to a forward facing pilot in a crowded situation. Unless, that is, the pilot wasn't human and could consider multiple directions at once. If these sideways maneuvers are available human error would skyrocket unless every vehicle, not just the ones which strafe, are autonomous and communicating with eachother.
which... isn't necissarily a bad thing. I for one just prefer to be in control and at the wheel. That freedom will probably eventually disappear with legislation. Hell, I wouldn't trust the average driver with these maneuverability options.
@@isaiahdaniels5643 I’ve thought of this as well. I think new training would be necessary for one. Also the ‘strafing’ could be regulated in a couple ways: only being available at extremely slow speeds mainly for parking, or being mostly inactive until the driver turns it on manually. There are other potential pros besides strafing as well like reducing slip, improving cornering, torque vectoring/traction control and nullifying other less safe maneuvers like u-turns and j-turns. I think with these things in mind and considering the current safety measures (blind spot sensors/alerts, collision prevention, cameras, etc.) we could make it work without too much danger, and still allow for human operation. I also want to be able to drive my own vehicle, but it might not work out that way. 🤞🏼
@@isaiahdaniels5643 | As I heard someone say: "They don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better then us." At the point where auto-cars crash less often then humans, they're viable. Still, driving your own car will probably hang on in novelty, recreation, and sport. Just like horse-riding, snow-shoeing, or hunting.
@@PotatoPatatoVonSpudsworth the thing is when somebody crashes with sombeody else you can blame it on the one who crashed. But when two machines crash and a human life gets lost due to that who do you blame it on??? The programer? The company? The owner of the car? Who is responsible for something that no human got directly involved in? And if the robot made a decision that could have saved a life but instead saved another like saying i can avoid a crash in wich my owner would die and i can instead run over an old man or a baby and then the car chose to run over the old man what happens? And if instead it decided it was better for the owner to die??? What about if it instead chose the baby?
@@midgetman4206 it's true, that is the work of scientific consultants, to make science fiction movies more credible, many people just get carried away by the illusion of the movie, and take it as "prediction"
We heard you like hemi wheels, so we put hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels...
Cops would eventually give up on the pit maneuver, when whoever they try to flip, keeps perpetually moving in the same direction no matter how much effort they put into redirection.
Not a specialist at all, just basic knowledge. You somehow don't understand what you're saying. A specialist is someone that has been doing and/or researching a specific thing for thousands of hours. No one can become a specialist in a few days or weeks, no matter how quickly you learn.
Can't wait for the next video, looks like a great application for a ring gear. If that was the case I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to move the carrier around and shift into a different gear for every wheel segment by simply adding stages.🤯 Your videos are so inspiring, It's kind of like that feeling when you finally understand a new manufacturing process and you're suddenly able to think about solving a problem in an entirely different way.
I'm an engineering grad student working on rehabilitation exoskeleton arms. I'm also a very enthusiastic 3d printer. This channel has been such a huge inspiration
Looks really nice! I noticed that when you get closer to the perpendicular axis, the hemispheres speed up rather quickly. So speed control may be an issue in a full robot? Is this smth you will talk about in the next video?
I wonder if the GoodYear concept would work better with an attached underpiece that prevents the wheel from falling out even with the magnetic forces. And I do see the problem with braking, as there is considerably less contact between the wheels and the surface. Furthermore, although this is just speculation on my behalf, I feel that fishtailing would be a problem, as the wheels (unlike cylindrical wheels) do not favour forward movement above the other axes. (And oversteer/understeer would probably be a problem too). Overall, without being an engineer or anything, I feel like ball wheels are definitely more suited for slower vehicles, where maneuverability is more important than handling and braking is not a major concern, like utility robots
I love your channel James. You inspire me to get into robotics and 3D printing. I always watch the sponsorships cause they are usually really helpful for your projects
Very cool! Have you considered replacing the small white wheel with ball casters? You wouldn't need to worry about the aligning the axis of rotation. Plus, it would limit the gap between the larger ball and ball caster.
First, congrats for your video, very concise and informative, and the basis for many mechanical and robotic applications. At 5:33 and 6:58, I don't know if another commenter pointed out, but you should try a ball at the top of each hemisphere, coupled to a ring ball bearing, and a screw-on retaining ring; that would make the wheel even more smooth as the ball could freely rotate in any direction and make an even smoother profile into a complete sphere. I'll try to work in a Blender model if you find it useful for a follow up video. Again, excellent video.
So far this would make a cool chair base, with motors though... a *REALY* cool chair base. Train it to automatically turn when you approach, or zip across the room when it sees you getting ready to sit in the air.
Stumbled onto this channel last night while rather stoned. I’ve got limited engineering experience and sometimes it sounds like your speaking a foreign language, despite that I am absolutely fascinated with your machines and I feel like I’m slowly learning things i never thought possible.
It looks realy greate. You can add additional wheels in gap similar one that you have on sides to minimize that bumping effect and as well to gain a bit of space and make wheels more rigid.
A mecanum wheel track in the gap (beads at 45 degrees on a D shaped tank track) would solve it, but it's complex and looses the main advantage of this wheel design: it can go offroad. Bumps are inevitable there.
Perhaps for a future revision, instead of having little wheels in the bottom of the assembly, have ball bearings or perhaps the balls they had in old computer mice, to allow everything to glide smoothly. Your videos are truly inspiring and I look forward to them every week, Thank you!
Nice work! reminds me how the softbank pepper robot moves. but softbank/aldebaran robotics tilted both half spheres a little bit to close the gap between them.
@@coderentity2079 sure: asia.nikkei.com/Business/Biotechnology/Peering-inside-Pepper in my opinion one of the most practical omni drives (patented) ever made for a robot. drives really smoothly! Here is an image of the omnidirectional spherical wheel: l-w-i.net/img/snap_arduinofun_mm26_09.jpg
@@Tho_Fox The slight hemsphere tilt does makes the gap way smaller indeed, great idea! Not for offroading though. I'll look for more details on that patent.
I can't speak for ball shaped wheels, but one of the biggest problems with omni or mecanum wheels is that you lose a lot of traction and can get pushed around easily, so if a car is going around a curve at speed, they will lose control much more easily than if they had used normal wheels.
The retaining clip binding onto the table is actually a very good representation of reality because tires need to be not only inflated to a point of being rigid but also sticky, which the binding clip demonstrates (if only even a little)
Love you channel James. I never know what I’m gonna wake up to each Tuesday - and that as well as the high quality of your videos keep me hooked. Having said that, I really want you to build a robot with those wheels you showed right at the beginning from that tyre manufacturer- using magnetic levitation. You can do it James, we believe in you! 😀
@@ZappyOh Maybe you can build such a system to 'fail closed' and magnetically brake if the power cuts out, since with a permanent magnet involved at least, magnetic braking is a thing that just happens (try dropping a magnet down a copper tube!) and doesn't require outside power input.
@@ZappyOh Then just don't turn the car off on an incline! Gosh! Design is just so much easier if customers just don't do what they're reasonably expected to do.
@@jamesbruton the braking force is independent of the wheels. When you pass a magnet over a non-ferrous metal, aluminum in this case, you get magnetic eddy currents which provide not only a powerful stopping force, but a self-regulating and cost-effective one as well. No parts to wear out because theres no contact being made in the braking system.
Just a guess but I think it would not work well, if you ever rode a motorcycle, you would know at one point when you reach a certain speed you turn the opposite direction to steer, I am guessing the forces would naturally want to start pushing the bike sideways. I could be wrong mind you.
@@patprop74 yes precisely, the counter steering part is what I was thinking about...the forces that make the bike inherently upright after leaning would be messed up, the ball shaped wheels is not designed for a leaning turn. I guess then every bike will have a drift like motion while cornering 😅
@@arnabdas3172 Imagine the nightmare of zooming around at 100mph, and the bike suddenly starts spinning around from front to back HAHAHA one would need one of James gyro installed in it lol
@@martindinner3621 Not really any worse than the wheels though; And you don't really need traction on that point, you just need to get off of it quickly and back to the "tread", right?
@@martindinner3621 True! What if you rubberized the ball and fixed in place? So instead of being a seperate entity to battle against it would just be another piece of the tread? I just feel like there is a better option than the wheels! 😅
All of these little experiments with robotics are a great way to inspire people. Like what if you created this wheel but combined with an omni wheel, and have a ball bearing or some kind of roller ball instead of a wheel at the poles of the wheel.
Just angle the axle, aka give it a little caster and a little toe in or out, and the part of the hemisphere on the end which can’t roll would never touch the ground. Would probably need to compensate for differences in rotation in between the two hemispheres with a sort of computer controlled differential or if the electric motor is in the hemisphere compensate with software.
This concept I find enthralling. My first thought was to use as the wheel base in the center leg in my R2D2 build. But now working on a BB8 using your smooth inside sphere. I am thinking these ball wheels would make a BB8 great drive train! Any negatives?
You might not need the little wheels attached to the center hub with their shape.. If you attached them to the hemispheres, they might act to self align the hemisphere so that the little wheels rolls in the direct of movement. It might now work 100 of the time but it would simplify the design.
Very nice design and well presented. Thank you for sharing. In my opinion the wheels era has to come to an end. I have been working on levitation type design. I have some success and still spending little time in my lab to further power enhancement. Little success but it is moving in good direction. You can imagine what would be the world like if we get rid of wheels and aerodynamic technology. I am doing my part, a very small contribution but it is in process. Anyway, thank you for your wonderful design. It is sensational to think about cars moving on a ball-wheels.
Wonder if flextures or spring could be built in to give the wheel some suspension as I would imagine the wheels would ride rough on a road compared to the conventional tire. Can't wait to see it with motors
Seems like a lot more parts to manufacture and assemble than a modern wheel, as well as being excessively complex for something like a modern automobile - which is plenty complex as-is. Great video exploring the concept :)
It would've been cool to see it roll down an incline (without motor assist) and bounce around some sort of obstacle course to see how freely it can move around. Aside from that this is a very cool concept and I'm eager to see the next phase.
It's quite simple in concept but maybe not so in implementation but I think we need to do this. The wheel ball housing and wheel ball housing act as stator and rotor with 360 degree range of torque actuation. Minimal mass so efficient and minimal components with a high safety factor. Extreme acceleration torque is possible. This is genius. Brilliant concept.
I honestly can't think of any use where spherical wheels are better than standard ones, except for forklifts. That said, they are absolutely interesting enough to dive into in order to get a better understanding of how it works and see what you can do with them.
With 3 omni-wheels you could go in any direction just by turning the main axels in corresponding directions. 2 spin in opposite directions puts you in a straight path and 3 in the same directions spins you around.
Hello, The propose ball wheel design looks good for moving in any direction. However, it only provide a payload support and interface between the vehicle and the floor. What about the transmission? That is how to make the ball rolling in the desired direction? The design concept proposed at the beginning of the video (0:34 to 0:48) is very interesting.
While I can see mounting a pair of drive motors to each main wheel, I'm not sure if you could get away with the endwheel getting enough power to keep up. There may be some way to rotate the tri-wheel assembly to keep the endwheel from rotating into ground contact with a rotational limit encoding in the support axles.
I remember having a dream about cars having ball wheels. The cool thing is that I recall there being a car shop where you can take cars with traditional wheels and modify it to have ball wheels.
Back in the '70s a former NASA engineer designed a vehicle based on chapter 1 of Ezekiel -- presented in his thin paperback THE SPACESHIPS OF EZEKIEL -- and the 4 wheels-within-wheels that supported it remind me of this design somewhat. Cool stuff!
I foresee these having the same issues as omni and mecanum wheels: dirt and inclines. These things require billiard table smooth floors and very little incline or you lose control.
The only slightly problematic part is the gap between the two hemispheres. This design doesn't have tiny wheels, tiny bearings and lots of gaps to fill with sand. To keep control, sure you need accelerometer and compass and gyroscope and compass and gps and barometer and laser radar and tof distance sensor and optical flow sensor and sonar - or vision :)
Perhaps this is a silly question, but rather than having the small wheel couldn't you track the wheel position and tell the motor to avoid the dead positions?
Not a silly question, you can track (or sense) the lock position and avoid it by slight turning. What you do loose with this is total control over the direction the robot faces. Sometimes you can't face a certain direction because of the drive-lock-avoiding. Bad thing for a camera dolly for example. Unimportant for a mapping robot.
Wouldn't it be easier to put a ball bearing at the top of each hemisphere instead of a one-directional wheel? I'm imagining an edge-case where the small wheel gets pushed at an angle
How well will the robot drive when we motorise the ball wheels? Patrons and TH-cam Channel Members have part 2 already which is next week's video!
You could just put another ball in the ends with nothing there instead of a wheel. That way it could roll in any direction!
Give the ball free will. That way it can rotate in any direction it wants!
How was this posted 4 days ago when the video was posted an hour ago? Time travler?
@@darknova2467 When you're a member, you can see videos early if the video poster chooses to upload the video for members to see first.
Circumvent driving on the littlewheel in software, and then you don't need that complexity. Embed a small magnet instead at the end of the axle, and you can sense it on top when it aprroaches, and then change the rotation of the robot. No disadvantage for a mapping application.
I'm always amazed at how you make a "That would be nice, but there's so many issues"-idea into a "Holy crap it actually works"-concept.
Thanks, more next week!
I think every "there's so many issues ideas" is always worth looking at. and every time those issues can be fixed it is sooo satisfying to witness.
@@Zoatsss Especially since it's what other modern things started out with as well (cars, house electrical systems, etc etc). Just took us plenty of time to turn something from "it's not great, but it works" to "it's workin pretty dang well", though I'd imagine it'd take many less decades by comparison considering how much more proficient our tech and computers are nowadays.
@@Zoatsss the problem is that even if you fix the issues you actually gain nothing from doing it and you get a working but useless thing
@@pedrolmlkzk what no where did you get that from
Would that frame be strong enough to support you? Would look incredible as the base of a chair!
An office chair was my first thought too lol.
i think the 4 bearings at the bottom would break the yellow pole if you tried to sit on it
@@someguy9175 he said they were skateboard bearings. I doubt those would break first. Probably the plastic first since the geometry likely isn't strong enough to hold his weight in PLA
@@lio1234234 that was what i was saying lol, but thanks for putting it better.
@@lio1234234 Nah, he said they press fit into place kinda lika skateboard bearings. The bearings he's using are way too big to be skateboard bearings.
The superglue necking over the bearings is oddly stressful
I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought that. 👀
And he did it twice. I was at the edge of my seat
@@Violianom no 6 a least for all his bals
I wanted to say, "GIVE me that glue gun!!!". Then, after thinking about it, I realized that if this kid can design and actually build something like this, then he would surely know his way around a glue gun. It must have been humor.
The three balls on that frame would look really cool if it were to be used as an office chair! Also would be more convenient since wheels on office chairs tend to bind.
Office chairs tend to have 5 wheels because it makes it less likely that the chair can be leaned opposite one of the wheels and as a result is less easily tipped over. Yes, it binds a bit more than with fewer wheels, but it's significantly safer.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade I doubt they would stick to 3 wheels, 5 points of contact is a minimum for office chairs. I'm just worried about already inflated price
One of my favorite sci-fi concepts is finally coming to life!
The worry that I hold is, when all of this technology is developed into mass market platforms manual driving would likely become illegal. Strafing is impractical to a forward facing pilot in a crowded situation. Unless, that is, the pilot wasn't human and could consider multiple directions at once. If these sideways maneuvers are available human error would skyrocket unless every vehicle, not just the ones which strafe, are autonomous and communicating with eachother.
which... isn't necissarily a bad thing. I for one just prefer to be in control and at the wheel. That freedom will probably eventually disappear with legislation. Hell, I wouldn't trust the average driver with these maneuverability options.
@@isaiahdaniels5643 I’ve thought of this as well. I think new training would be necessary for one. Also the ‘strafing’ could be regulated in a couple ways: only being available at extremely slow speeds mainly for parking, or being mostly inactive until the driver turns it on manually. There are other potential pros besides strafing as well like reducing slip, improving cornering, torque vectoring/traction control and nullifying other less safe maneuvers like u-turns and j-turns. I think with these things in mind and considering the current safety measures (blind spot sensors/alerts, collision prevention, cameras, etc.) we could make it work without too much danger, and still allow for human operation. I also want to be able to drive my own vehicle, but it might not work out that way. 🤞🏼
@@isaiahdaniels5643 | As I heard someone say:
"They don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better then us."
At the point where auto-cars crash less often then humans, they're viable. Still, driving your own car will probably hang on in novelty, recreation, and sport. Just like horse-riding, snow-shoeing, or hunting.
@@PotatoPatatoVonSpudsworth the thing is when somebody crashes with sombeody else you can blame it on the one who crashed. But when two machines crash and a human life gets lost due to that who do you blame it on??? The programer? The company? The owner of the car? Who is responsible for something that no human got directly involved in? And if the robot made a decision that could have saved a life but instead saved another like saying i can avoid a crash in wich my owner would die and i can instead run over an old man or a baby and then the car chose to run over the old man what happens? And if instead it decided it was better for the owner to die??? What about if it instead chose the baby?
The first idea actually appeared in "I Robot" movie, they than took it and actually developed a concept wheel system out of it.
Yeah the cars in I Robot were cool 👍🏽
wrong, the concept have more time. the all the sci fi movies use a scientific consultant.
@@rc3d490 never heard of this concept before I Robot, you have any sources to like first concepts of ball wheels in cars?
@@rc3d490 They might not have created the concept but they sure did popularize it
@@midgetman4206 it's true, that is the work of scientific consultants, to make science fiction movies more credible, many people just get carried away by the illusion of the movie, and take it as "prediction"
I remember being so excited for ball shaped wheels. Would be really cool
Too me. I suddenly remember that. I was watched at both TV and TH-cam. I dreamed love these robots.
Very excited for wheel shaped balls as well.
Where's the fun and ball Wheels you can't drift with them the technology they may bring with it maybe exciting but on trucks I could see their purpose
I know right? C'mon evolution, work goddamn it
It can be nice for toys, but if we talking about cars can you imagine what a big problem the maintenance will be?
I have no idea how you get so much work done consistently every week. It’s very inspiring.
Planning!
Magic
the two kinds of people
Drugs
Looks like you build a good base for a chair.
Same thing I was thinking!
Came here to say this
Yes
Hey, why is everybody stealing my idea? 😂
😆👍
Gotta put little hemi wheels in the holes of the hemi wheels!
It could be a fractal 'o balls
It's hemi wheels all the way down
We heard you like hemi wheels, so we put hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels in your hemi wheels...
Put balls in the holes
@@wildcard4552 😏
I want to see it as the base of a Sci Fi throne in a movie.
You know what
Just for you, I'll consider it.
Oooh I love that Idea and really like how the robot seemed to move so smoothly at the end!
Motorised version coming next week!
Car wants to learning a new move! Car learned “Strafe!”
Parking would be effortless
Cops would eventually give up on the pit maneuver, when whoever they try to flip, keeps perpetually moving in the same direction no matter how much effort they put into redirection.
It is Crazy How James take a concept and in one video he become specialist on It.
Not a specialist at all, just basic knowledge. You somehow don't understand what you're saying. A specialist is someone that has been doing and/or researching a specific thing for thousands of hours. No one can become a specialist in a few days or weeks, no matter how quickly you learn.
@@MuscarV2 James is a DIY specialist.
@@coderentity2079 thats..no.
I really love these tutorial ish engineering experimentation. Bravo James, hope to see more like this
Can't wait for the next video, looks like a great application for a ring gear. If that was the case I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to move the carrier around and shift into a different gear for every wheel segment by simply adding stages.🤯
Your videos are so inspiring, It's kind of like that feeling when you finally understand a new manufacturing process and you're suddenly able to think about solving a problem in an entirely different way.
I'm an engineering grad student working on rehabilitation exoskeleton arms. I'm also a very enthusiastic 3d printer. This channel has been such a huge inspiration
hello very enthusiastic 3d printer, I am a 3d printer enthusiast and I am interested in very enthusiastic 3d printer
Ok now print an exossqeleton sell it to army, *profit*
That is impressive! I am amazed at the complexity of the designs you are producing. Can’t wait to see the motor drive for this.
Love it when I open TH-cam and I’m early to a vid
But if it did use magnetic levitation, *technically that would make it the first hover car. . .*
they could make roads 2 cylinder shaped things that use the same magnets or system as the balls so the car would just be placed on top
@@vinzlaros I thought about that, in theory it could work but I don't think there is enough money I the world to buy that many magnets.
@@jonathanlewis6146 they'll either recycle or mine,it will never be not enuff
So a Maglev train?
Looks really nice! I noticed that when you get closer to the perpendicular axis, the hemispheres speed up rather quickly. So speed control may be an issue in a full robot? Is this smth you will talk about in the next video?
I wonder if the GoodYear concept would work better with an attached underpiece that prevents the wheel from falling out even with the magnetic forces. And I do see the problem with braking, as there is considerably less contact between the wheels and the surface. Furthermore, although this is just speculation on my behalf, I feel that fishtailing would be a problem, as the wheels (unlike cylindrical wheels) do not favour forward movement above the other axes. (And oversteer/understeer would probably be a problem too). Overall, without being an engineer or anything, I feel like ball wheels are definitely more suited for slower vehicles, where maneuverability is more important than handling and braking is not a major concern, like utility robots
I love your channel James. You inspire me to get into robotics and 3D printing. I always watch the sponsorships cause they are usually really helpful for your projects
Has any human printed more 3d prints than James? The man must run multiple printers 24/7.
And they aren't small prints either.
Maybe Ivan Miranda!
Průša's printing farm with a thousand printers
@@MbanziSD I'd say James has more completed prints, while Ivan has printed a greater volume of plastic. :D
@@StevenIngram The volume of plastic wasted on Miranda’s channel has reached a indigestible level and is the main reason I stopped watching him... 😔
Very cool! Have you considered replacing the small white wheel with ball casters? You wouldn't need to worry about the aligning the axis of rotation. Plus, it would limit the gap between the larger ball and ball caster.
8:54 that would make a badass rolling desk chair
So the car in "i robot" movie would be a reality, pretty cool video
I was pretty much going to say the same thing. Those cars in that movie seemed to be using the mag lev setup, or at least very close to it.
First, congrats for your video, very concise and informative, and the basis for many mechanical and robotic applications.
At 5:33 and 6:58, I don't know if another commenter pointed out, but you should try a ball at the top of each hemisphere, coupled to a ring ball bearing, and a screw-on retaining ring; that would make the wheel even more smooth as the ball could freely rotate in any direction and make an even smoother profile into a complete sphere. I'll try to work in a Blender model if you find it useful for a follow up video.
Again, excellent video.
So far this would make a cool chair base, with motors though...
a *REALY* cool chair base.
Train it to automatically turn when you approach, or zip across the room when it sees you getting ready to sit in the air.
This would make a really cool robotic platform!
Stumbled onto this channel last night while rather stoned. I’ve got limited engineering experience and sometimes it sounds like your speaking a foreign language, despite that I am absolutely fascinated with your machines and I feel like I’m slowly learning things i never thought possible.
It looks realy greate. You can add additional wheels in gap similar one that you have on sides to minimize that bumping effect and as well to gain a bit of space and make wheels more rigid.
A mecanum wheel track in the gap (beads at 45 degrees on a D shaped tank track) would solve it, but it's complex and looses the main advantage of this wheel design: it can go offroad. Bumps are inevitable there.
Perhaps for a future revision, instead of having little wheels in the bottom of the assembly, have ball bearings or perhaps the balls they had in old computer mice, to allow everything to glide smoothly. Your videos are truly inspiring and I look forward to them every week, Thank you!
2:35 "yup.. its a wheeel"
idk why but that was so funny
Can't wait to see the next video. This looks like it will be a very cool kiwi drive robot!
trust me james . i get inspired by your video and i get so much educational stuff! im a 12 year old kid
Wow, that is super trippy! Cool concept!
Please make a video on CAD models, (Fusion) it would be great for us!
yeah or a 2nd channel, like James Bruton too/2, for cad designing process of the projects on the main channel
I built a sphero car which can do this as well. This is also possible with superconductors and locking a magnet within the wheel.
Wow this is a great design, you are always so creative, it would be great to see this implemented in some robot
Nice work! reminds me how the softbank pepper robot moves. but softbank/aldebaran robotics tilted both half spheres a little bit to close the gap between them.
Can you give a link to how that works? I could'nt find it.
@@coderentity2079 sure: asia.nikkei.com/Business/Biotechnology/Peering-inside-Pepper
in my opinion one of the most practical omni drives (patented) ever made for a robot. drives really smoothly! Here is an image of the omnidirectional spherical wheel: l-w-i.net/img/snap_arduinofun_mm26_09.jpg
@@Tho_Fox The slight hemsphere tilt does makes the gap way smaller indeed, great idea! Not for offroading though. I'll look for more details on that patent.
I can't speak for ball shaped wheels, but one of the biggest problems with omni or mecanum wheels is that you lose a lot of traction and can get pushed around easily, so if a car is going around a curve at speed, they will lose control much more easily than if they had used normal wheels.
that would be a cool base for an office chair. It would probobly feel smoother than castor wheels.
I said the other day it was a spherical ball when you shown us the image! (Disclaimer: My comment may not be 100% accurate)
Can't wait to see the motorised edition !
Next week!
Would be interesting to put designs on high speed rc bots and check where the wear occurs.
thats where im concerned, with circular wheels, how do you maintain even wear and then grip on the entire tyre?
Cool!, omniwheel and omnitrack are the work of my friend and colleague Kenjiro Tadakuma (now in Tohoku University).
Finally, parallel parking made easier!
Great results! This would be a interesting/stable tripod design for a second really useful robot series!
how does this only have 3k views
It went out less than an hour ago, also the publicly viewable view count isn't up to date.
@@jamesbruton ah hadn't realised it was a recent video lmao
The retaining clip binding onto the table is actually a very good representation of reality because tires need to be not only inflated to a point of being rigid but also sticky, which the binding clip demonstrates (if only even a little)
I heard about this, when does the Omni-wheel start beating its son?
Well have you seen it murder the guardians of the globe yet.
Love you channel James. I never know what I’m gonna wake up to each Tuesday - and that as well as the high quality of your videos keep me hooked.
Having said that, I really want you to build a robot with those wheels you showed right at the beginning from that tyre manufacturer- using magnetic levitation.
You can do it James, we believe in you! 😀
A note on the intro: magnetic braking is super-effective. It's how they stop roller coasters safely.
Well ... it isn't effective, if electricity gets cut off, for some reason.
@@ZappyOh Maybe you can build such a system to 'fail closed' and magnetically brake if the power cuts out, since with a permanent magnet involved at least, magnetic braking is a thing that just happens (try dropping a magnet down a copper tube!) and doesn't require outside power input.
The wheels are attached to the roller coaster though
@@ZappyOh Then just don't turn the car off on an incline! Gosh! Design is just so much easier if customers just don't do what they're reasonably expected to do.
@@jamesbruton the braking force is independent of the wheels. When you pass a magnet over a non-ferrous metal, aluminum in this case, you get magnetic eddy currents which provide not only a powerful stopping force, but a self-regulating and cost-effective one as well. No parts to wear out because theres no contact being made in the braking system.
3:00 you could use a captive ball bearring instead, its like a wheel that can rotate in any direction
I'm interested to know if these can be used in motorcycles too in the future...
Just a guess but I think it would not work well, if you ever rode a motorcycle, you would know at one point when you reach a certain speed you turn the opposite direction to steer, I am guessing the forces would naturally want to start pushing the bike sideways. I could be wrong mind you.
@@patprop74 yes precisely, the counter steering part is what I was thinking about...the forces that make the bike inherently upright after leaning would be messed up, the ball shaped wheels is not designed for a leaning turn. I guess then every bike will have a drift like motion while cornering 😅
@@arnabdas3172 Imagine the nightmare of zooming around at 100mph, and the bike suddenly starts spinning around from front to back HAHAHA one would need one of James gyro installed in it lol
I really appreciate all the videos you put out. I have learned a lot from them.
Wouldn't ball-bearings work better than the small wheels?
I think that would make it difficult to motorize the wheel.
@@JohnDlugosz also, traction would be...poor.
@@martindinner3621 Not really any worse than the wheels though; And you don't really need traction on that point, you just need to get off of it quickly and back to the "tread", right?
@@praticle you've just hit on the problem. If you don't have friction, in an unpowered system you would get stuck on the bearing.
@@martindinner3621 True! What if you rubberized the ball and fixed in place? So instead of being a seperate entity to battle against it would just be another piece of the tread? I just feel like there is a better option than the wheels! 😅
That omni wheel triangle looks like it would make an awesome chair base.
That movements messing with my head...😅
All of these little experiments with robotics are a great way to inspire people. Like what if you created this wheel but combined with an omni wheel, and have a ball bearing or some kind of roller ball instead of a wheel at the poles of the wheel.
I Robot.
You are reinventing the wheel dude.
When a concept technology provokes a deep gut laugh it may just be worth looking into XD
Just angle the axle, aka give it a little caster and a little toe in or out, and the part of the hemisphere on the end which can’t roll would never touch the ground. Would probably need to compensate for differences in rotation in between the two hemispheres with a sort of computer controlled differential or if the electric motor is in the hemisphere compensate with software.
a ball bearing would have been a much simpler fix to put on the top of each half sphere but the way you engineered it is very amazing!
This concept I find enthralling. My first thought was to use as the wheel base in the center leg in my R2D2 build. But now working on a BB8 using your smooth inside sphere. I am thinking these ball wheels would make a BB8 great drive train! Any negatives?
Thank you for determining exactly how my next shopvac bot will glide across the floor ;)
Omg, mahn, cant wait to see part 2 of this..
You’ve solved the problem of the crappy casters on office chairs!
You might not need the little wheels attached to the center hub with their shape.. If you attached them to the hemispheres, they might act to self align the hemisphere so that the little wheels rolls in the direct of movement. It might now work 100 of the time but it would simplify the design.
Very nice design and well presented. Thank you for sharing. In my opinion the wheels era has to come to an end. I have been working on levitation type design. I have some success and still spending little time in my lab to further power enhancement. Little success but it is moving in good direction. You can imagine what would be the world like if we get rid of wheels and aerodynamic technology. I am doing my part, a very small contribution but it is in process. Anyway, thank you for your wonderful design. It is sensational to think about cars moving on a ball-wheels.
Wonder if flextures or spring could be built in to give the wheel some suspension as I would imagine the wheels would ride rough on a road compared to the conventional tire.
Can't wait to see it with motors
Seems like a lot more parts to manufacture and assemble than a modern wheel, as well as being excessively complex for something like a modern automobile - which is plenty complex as-is. Great video exploring the concept :)
Saw this concept in I, Robot. I was so amazed.
It would've been cool to see it roll down an incline (without motor assist) and bounce around some sort of obstacle course to see how freely it can move around. Aside from that this is a very cool concept and I'm eager to see the next phase.
Motorised version (with obstacles) coming up next week
That's a great design 😁👍 very exciting 👏👏👏
It's quite simple in concept but maybe not so in implementation but I think we need to do this. The wheel ball housing and wheel ball housing act as stator and rotor with 360 degree range of torque actuation. Minimal mass so efficient and minimal components with a high safety factor. Extreme acceleration torque is possible. This is genius. Brilliant concept.
Who came up with this at Goodyear?
best robotics content as always
I honestly can't think of any use where spherical wheels are better than standard ones, except for forklifts. That said, they are absolutely interesting enough to dive into in order to get a better understanding of how it works and see what you can do with them.
With 3 omni-wheels you could go in any direction just by turning the main axels in corresponding directions. 2 spin in opposite directions puts you in a straight path and 3 in the same directions spins you around.
This is honestly a pretty interesting subject, it would be cool to one day see cars with wheels like that at some point in the future.
That’ll make for such a cool office chair!💡
You are the best, thanks for another great video
Interesting to see how you attach motors to them ball/wheels...
Hello,
The propose ball wheel design looks good for moving in any direction.
However, it only provide a payload support and interface between the vehicle and the floor.
What about the transmission?
That is how to make the ball rolling in the desired direction?
The design concept proposed at the beginning of the video (0:34 to 0:48) is very interesting.
You could slot a singular ball bearing into the peak of each hemisphere so when it reaches there is rolls omnidirectionally as the larger ball does
A car with ball wheels would be so awesome! No more issues with parallel parking.
While I can see mounting a pair of drive motors to each main wheel, I'm not sure if you could get away with the endwheel getting enough power to keep up. There may be some way to rotate the tri-wheel assembly to keep the endwheel from rotating into ground contact with a rotational limit encoding in the support axles.
I remember having a dream about cars having ball wheels. The cool thing is that I recall there being a car shop where you can take cars with traditional wheels and modify it to have ball wheels.
Back in the '70s a former NASA engineer designed a vehicle based on chapter 1 of Ezekiel -- presented in his thin paperback THE SPACESHIPS OF EZEKIEL -- and the 4 wheels-within-wheels that supported it remind me of this design somewhat. Cool stuff!
Definitely wondering how you would control this. can't wait to see more!
You only have to wait until Tuesday!
@@jamesbruton Or become a patreon ;)
I foresee these having the same issues as omni and mecanum wheels: dirt and inclines. These things require billiard table smooth floors and very little incline or you lose control.
The only slightly problematic part is the gap between the two hemispheres. This design doesn't have tiny wheels, tiny bearings and lots of gaps to fill with sand. To keep control, sure you need accelerometer and compass and gyroscope and compass and gps and barometer and laser radar and tof distance sensor and optical flow sensor and sonar - or vision :)
Perhaps this is a silly question, but rather than having the small wheel couldn't you track the wheel position and tell the motor to avoid the dead positions?
Not a silly question, you can track (or sense) the lock position and avoid it by slight turning. What you do loose with this is total control over the direction the robot faces. Sometimes you can't face a certain direction because of the drive-lock-avoiding. Bad thing for a camera dolly for example. Unimportant for a mapping robot.
Machines like this will be serving us drinks at restaurants soon enough
This is really awesome. Thanks for the really cool video!
Cant wait to see the motorized version of these wheels!
I actually had this concept in my head back in middle school, too bad i didn't offer it up back then!
Wouldn't it be easier to put a ball bearing at the top of each hemisphere instead of a one-directional wheel? I'm imagining an edge-case where the small wheel gets pushed at an angle
Using additive manufacturing would actually allow for a captured sphere to be printed into the perpendicular axis