Hi,
I have to give a speech on a technical concept or subject. I am thinking about doing it on the physics of a unicycle/wheel. Have any tips on what concepts I could cover with the physics of unicycles? Also, do you know of any credible organizations, etc., that I could use for sources and research? Thanks!
Matt 
Here is some discussion about BC wheels: BC Wheels Physics????????
I doubt that would help.
you might want to talk about:
-rotational inertia
-center of mass
-momentum
-torque
thats all i can think of. it not anything really technical…
That actually looks like it would be pretty usefull for this project, a lot of ideas are discussed there.
But we all know that’s all a bunch of hooey. Unicycles stay up because of magic. 
really? i always thought it was little elves.
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~marsden/bib/1999/11-ZeBlMa1999/ZeBlMa1999.pdf
It was part of:
Proceedings of the 3th Conference on Decision & Control, Phoenix, Arizona USA December 1999 (link)
Little elves working there magic.
maybe gyroscopic force
ah, good point.
well, magic elves.
How in depth are you thinking? It’d be cool to examine how a rock when stuck in the tread of a wheel stays there and apply concepts of uniform circular motion to it (saying that tread provides some tensional force [more like frictional] on the stone keeping it in a circular pattern. Then, it might be intersting to show how when the rock becomes freed from the tread, its tendency is to follow a straight line (Newton’s second law) tangent to the tire. But, as anywhere, gravity has an effect on the stone, causing it to follow a projectile path (parabolic). You could connect all of these relationships to show how far a rock projectile will go depending on when it’s released in the rotation and how the speed of the rotation changes the intitial velocity.
If you wanted to take it a different way, you could go with friction of various tires (kinds of rubber) on different surfaces (i.e. wet, snowy, slimy, coarse, sandy) and determine the best tires for the best surfaces. This would get into coefficients of friction and the higher the coefficient, the more frictional force is applied, which is better for ‘grip’.
Just suggestions… these concepts can be hard to grasp, so I’m not sure what you’re looking for.
haha, Kyle you’re nuts!
…or you could come and watch me, and learn much about acceleration due to gravity, followed by collisions with a solid object.
Nao
what about tire/tube thermodynamics?
you can include something like relations between, tire contact area with floor, tire pressure and weight of the rider+uni…
tire air temperature while hopping…
that’s a common misconception; they’re actually leprechauns.
it’s true.