Frikkin' Physics Project - Help! (Sorta Urgent)

I have a term Physics project due in a week that I put off for quite a while, mostly because of my uni. Although I do have a little done I need some help. My topic is the unicycle and the physics behind it. I did a search but didn’t get much. I have to do a webpage with ten linked pages. I plan on having an intro page, a Q and A page, a links page, a Centre of gravity page, maybe a tests page (those tests they do to Kris Holm on more than human, uni’ers vs. non-uni’ers) and maybe a general balance page or a how its made/build description page. Oh yeah maybe a resources page if I can get it to not look like a links page. I need ideas for four or five other physics/unicycle related page. Also could anyone tell me what forces go into unicycling and everything you can of the physics of a unicycle? Thanks. And to everyone out there don’t procrastinate!

My mom says if i don’t get this done I’m definitely not going to TOQUE. So please help.

Thanks,
David

I really wish I could help. A few months ago i was on google and found some magazine interview with Kris Holm. It was a science magazine and it ahd tons of stuff on the physics of unicycling. I’ll try to find it.

Thanks I have to go work on the other parts but i’ll check back later tonight. Thanks again i appreciate it.

Wish me luck,
David

http://mike.hinson.unicyclist.com/ might be of service to you. Go through the WHOLE site.

http://www.gilby.com/unicycling/AutoBalance.html Also might help

Never mind. That Gilby link was a joke. I didn’t read the site before i posted it :frowning:

http://demo1.physics.wisc.edu/UW-Demos_Pira/1J-StatisticsRigidBodies.html

^^^^^^This might just be what you’re looking for.

Don’t forget about the Eunicycle

And a German self balancing unicycle

And Jackie Chabanais is a French guy who rides a motorized unicycle. It’s not self balancing (he controls the motor and clutch himself). The site is in French and English which should get you some bonus points.

There have been past discussions in these fora you might find interesting.

Try here.

Physics of tire roll-out here.

Physics of high-speed UPDs here.

Some seriously deep stuff here.

Physics of turning corners here.

There’s really all sorts of stuff. Just do some creative searching. It took me longer to paste these links in than it did to find them.

Thanks everyone, I found some new topics and should have enough, but keep them coming just in case. Haha. Now I think I’ll unplug my computer because it is so easy to get lost in RSU when you should be working.

Later,
David

searching on ‘Balance Envelope’ got a whole pile of threads
i wouldn’t know which are relevant and which aren’t
if u do need some more, it might be worth wading thru them

Tom Blackwood’s ‘seriously deep’ link should get u an A
:sunglasses:

let us know how it turns out

when you finish the report, post it so I can read it. There is nothing like a good read about unicycles.

Re: Frikkin’ Physics Project - Help! (Sorta Urgent)

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 18:33:52 -0600, “darchibald” wrote:

>the physics of a unicycle?

Two that haven’t been mentioned yet:

<http://www.el.utwente.nl/tt/people/private/baar/fiets/eenwieler.pdf>
a paper on unicycle balance by Dutch unicyclist John van Baar. A
draft version but I don’t think John ever went beyond that.

<http://www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/lean_uni.htm> on why you have to lean
“into” a slope, by myself.

>And to everyone out there don’t
>procrastinate!
Procrastinate later! And good luck.

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

Today (4 January) is the first day this year that is neither the first day this year nor the first day this year that is not the first day this year nor the first day this year that is neither the first day this year nor the first day this year that is
not the first day this year.

Yes, please post the link to your research when you finish it. I’ve been wanting to do the same research myself, but havn’t had the time. It’ll impress my father who had a Dr. in physics.

Re: Frikkin’ Physics Project - Help! (Sorta Urgent)

That’s good advice. And while you’re at it, don’t hypocritate either! :smiley:

Now to spare Darchibald supurfluous reading, please note that I don’t have anything that hasn’t already been posted. the rest you probably won’t want to waste your time on.

This is another one of many requests from forum members for us to do their homework for them. I don’t know how to compare this to my own school experience, as such resources didn’t exist back then. But shouldn’t he be doing most of this himself? Providing links is fine, but sometimes people with homework assignments ask for the whole project!

And wait until the last week to do it. I guess this is typical for a lot of us. But for those of you with upcoming projects, don’t forget to ask your “unpaid research assistants” early, so you’ll have time to read, sort, and plagarize the data.

Just kidding.

Good luck! I hope you earn the trip. Remember, keep it simple. A smaller number of well-explained points will probably make for a better project than a larger number of messy or less-clear ones.

It’s a joke?!?!?
I’m screwed then because I ordered two of them…

Hey,

You could talk about the conservation of angular momentum when you run and jump on a impossible wheel, the rotational friction that goes into riding a unicycle, and why its harder to ride on ice because of that, and probably something about torque relating to hub or something like that. 


                             Jason Begun

Again thank you everyone for your help. I wasn’t asking anyone to do my homework (although if you want to…), I was just looking for links, half of them I already had, and wondering how the uni works. I don’t question it I just ride it. I will likely post the link but it won’t be a very long writeup and nothing very inspired. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel (haha) I’m just gonna present the facts. Again thank you all, I have a decent jump on it now.

David

I just tried a unicycle search with Google Scholar. It’s the first time I had tried Google Scholar. Lots of scholarly links there. I even managed to find the seriously deep article that Tom linked to. I was surprised at the number of articles found that mentioned “unicycle”.

The challenge is finding interesting articles that don’t require college level physics or control theory knowledge.

The problem with Google Scholar is that it will return some links to articles that require a subscription to read. It would be nice if you could limit the results to just articles that are freely available on the web.

Re: Re: Frikkin’ Physics Project - Help! (Sorta Urgent)

Don’t forget Diagrams John Diagrams are good too.

John,

Not to be mean or anything but stop giving Darchibald such a hard time. It was extremely…“not so smart” of him to wait till the last week but we can’t freak out on him. Today my friend came up to me as i was walking in the hall. He was like “Dude do you have a calculator I really need one?” I instantly pulled it out of my binder without a thought of doubt. I still haven’t gotten it back from him but i know he’ll give it to me in band tommorow.

The big moral: Always help out friends. You might just be the one with a late project some day asking for help.