MIT student builds an electric self-balancing unicycle

A rather fantastic DIY project to end the year: MIT student Stephan Boyer has built his own self-balancing electrical unicycle to roll with speed around the campus.

Called the "Bullet", the custom steel body holds two 7Ah 12-volt batteries, a 450-watt electric motor and an ATmega328 chip.  This gives the solowheel transport a range of 5 miles with a max speed of 15mph.  At that speed, it's not going to replace your daily commute; but it makes for the perfect round-campus mode of transportation, as the students in the video demonstration.  The device self-balances in terms of forward and backward movement, and left and right balancing is left up to the user (and as we were terrible at trying to ride our bicycle with no hands, we look upon this with a sense of fear).  Stephan has given us tips on how to ride the speed-demon unicycle in the source link.  In the realm of modes of desirable transportation, this is definitely one of the more charming options.  

Source: Stephan Boyer