Spherical Drive System

03/01/2016

Dear Friends,

After 3 years in hiatus, we have finally decided to close this chapter of our lives. We are officially putting the SDS hardware up for auction.

We would love to see this project carried on, or put on display to inspire other to take on ambitious ideas.

What is included:
4x Unused Valence Lithium Iron Magnesium Phosphate batteries - each valued at $3100 retail
6x Animatics SM34165DT - each valued at $1800 retail
10x Omnitrack ball transfer units - each valued at $60 retail
6x 1040 Machined and Zinc Plated Omniwheels - Custom Machined
304 Stainless steel frame - Custom Built
23" Carbon Fiber/Fiber Glass composite spheres - Custom Built

We'll be posting the ebay link for the auction up within the next couple of days. In the meantime, feel free to contact us if you have any questions

This was our baby; we put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears in brining it up to this point. Thank you for all your interest and support.

Sincerely,
SDS Team

06/17/2015

Hello to all our followers,

Not an SDS update, but a post to showcase a product one of our past engineers is working on. The Sandman Clock puts charge points where you need them most and hopes to declutter your living space. If this interests you give them some support!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paloaltoinnovation/sandman

The Sandman is a digital clock with four USB ports to provide a simple way to charge all of your devices.

12/17/2012

The amount of attention that we have received in the past few months have been overwhelming to say the least. We’ve received interest in our project from microblogs, tech-blogs, all the way to mainstream media, and magazines. We would like to thank everyone that has been following the project and talking about it. This is why we want to give everyone a little status update on how the project is going. Since most of the team’s graduation back in May of 2012, we’ve been immersed in the construction of our spheres, and finishing up the motor mounts. But aside from engineering, we also were chosen as Finalists in the Collegiate Inventor’s Competition. An annual competition held in Washington D.C. by Invent Now inc. and sponsored by the United States Patent Office. We had to prepare videos and practice our presentation for this prestigious event. Now that the competition is behind us, we are refocusing our energy on the task of finishing the full-scale prototype.

For the full-scale prototype, we have acquired new controls team members, as well as preparing for a campaign that we will release soon. With all this being said, our current projected deadline for finishing the full-scale prototype is September of 2013.

Thank you everyone for all the encouragement thus far, we are determined to see this project to the finish.

Sincerely,

Team SDS

You've invented something that has a good chance of impacting the world. We have a 21 year history of honoring inventions like yours through the Collegiate Inventors Competition program. So why not see if your idea is up to the challenge.

11/20/2012

Hey gang, SDS is in the process of coming up with some cool t-shirt design so that you guys can show your support for the project. All procedes will be going towards the final push for completion of the bike. Please tell us which designs you guys like best! Just like which ever design you think is best and we'll pick the top two most favorite designs to print. - Team SDS

09/20/2012

Autoblog interview up, go check it out and let us know what you think!

A group of engineering students at San Jose University have cooked up an ambitious senior project. Max Ratner, Henry Li and Andrew Parmar came up

09/18/2012

09/06/2012

Hey Everyone,
So there seems to be a lot of recurring questions, let me try to get them all (hopefully) in one go:

Spheres are made of Carbon Fiber/Fiberglass with a very tough industrial rubber coating, for traction and force distribution. Yes, we have discussed many other ways of making the spheres that would be 100 times better, but raising the funds for making a 2 foot sphere x2 is never easy…They are rigid enough and provide enough traction for this purpose. No the spheres won’t go anywhere if the spheres lift off of the ground, they are contained.

The Spheres can wear somewhat unevenly in initial testing but as the motors are all evenly preloaded to the spheres to for maximizing traction.

We will have videos of the final bike as well as a live unveiling, once we have the prototype up and running (hoping for end of 2012). As far as test pilots…I call dibs! Jk, it will likely start off without a rider until we can be certain of predictable motion. Currently, it does roll as it sits but where’s the fun in that?

Will this work and is it practical? There needs to be some fundamental additions/changes to the design to make this thing feasible; such as braking, traction, cost of manufacturing, and of course a bullet proof control system for high speeds.

Why would anyone want a spherical drive bike? Safety…Stability…New degrees of freedom are a start. I don’t know about you, but to me spinning while flying down the street would be lots of fun.

There have been many comments about suspension, and there actually is 2 shocks in this dual swing arm design, so some dampening does exist. A pneumatic tire does an excellent job of cushioning the rider further but we’ll leave it at that.

Cost? If you have to ask you can’t afford it…only kidding, but seriously though…it’s a lot, think Tesla Roadster status, but prototypes are never cheap. We hope to get this much lower if it is to be feasible.

Speed? For the scope of this project it is 5-10mph to get the controls right. Theoretical speed, purely going off of gear ratios between the motors and final drive, is something close to 60mph.

Operation of the vehicle will be intuitive to a motorcycle rider…somewhat…lean to move side to side, throttle and steering are there as well. All, computer controlled, to keep you from doing something that could end in a “bad time”.

Be sure to check out older posts and our website at www.sphericaldrivesystem.com for more info.
Thank you all for the support!

-SDS Team

The completed small scale rig with two 3 motor drives. The center beam will be used to position weight to make finessing the balance controls easier.

09/05/2012

Thanks for all the likes. Motivation right there! How did you hear about SDS? We would love to know.

09/04/2012

So close...

09/04/2012

Both Drive Systems now assembled.

09/04/2012

All of the omniwheels have grip.

08/29/2012

6 tries later, the rollers have traction.