From I SCOOT to IBOT, #4 of ?? (with some pictures!)

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/11/10 03:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/11/10/9056619.aspx

Prior blogs in the series here and here and here.

In response to I SCOOT TO IBOT, #2 of ??, Gwyn commented:

Can you provide some pictures of the different modes? I'm not really sure what they all are exactly like.

Very good idea!

I had a few minutes and my camera so I decided to take some pictures.

I had no one else here and I did not think of it earlier in the weekend when I was around some people, so this would have to be a solo operation. I'll probably try to get some more when there are people around, eventually....

WARNING: Although I took these pictures of different modes while I was not in the chair, you should NEVER do that. EVER. The chair is calibrated with a me-sized person in it, and me not in it is not something that it knows what to do with!

We'll start with standard mode.

First from the front:

and then from the front:

and then from the back:

Special things to note in this mode (not including the I'm a PC sticker on the side, the Microsoft parking pass you can see in the front and the license plate you can see in the back, the latter two of which came from the Saab that is no more) -- this is the mode that is fastest -- up to 6.8 MPH.

Note those extra caster wheels in the front -- they are only used in this mode.

The control is fairly lousy so I really only spend time in this mode when I want to be parked or as low as possible or if I have to go somewhere in a hurry.

Then there is the four-wheel mode.

Here it is from the front:

and from the side:

Now notice how those caster wheels are just kind of hanging there? They are not used in this mode.

And this is the mode that can bring up the carpet squares if it used indoors. So that is something to not drive around in, inside.

But it is very rugged and can take on some really steep hills (both up and down).

I find it to be the best all-around travel mode, and the one I use (for example) to go to work with unless it isn't raining and I do not mind the extra few minutes of the next mode.

Finally, there is balance mode.

First from the front in its shortest view:

and from the back in its shortest view:

and then penultimately (and more impressively) from the side, in the shortest setting:

and then finally, and most impressively  is balance mode in its tallest view:

This difference may be impossible to see from the pictures, I think it'll have to have people next to it while I'm in it to be meaningful.

Though there was one important difference which I took some brief video footage of.

Basically, in the shortest balance mode, the empty IBOT shuffled back and forth a little bit as you can see in the low-res video here (WMV, ~679 KB zipped).

But in the tallest balance mode, the empty IBOT was moving a lot and was clearly missing me, or some reasonable me-sized weight in there as you can see in the low-res video here (WMV, ~1 MB zipped).

When taking it out of balance mode the fact that I confused it was even more apparent, as it struggled to try to balance a me-sized weight that wasn't there made it go forward at least five feet.

I'll try to do this again when I have someone else there to do the video while I switch the modes. It really was quite a site!

Anyway, hope that will do well enough until I have time to get some more made, with people so that they will be more useful for all the reasons I mentioned! :-)

On a side note, there is an IBOT over on eBay right now for 12000 which, while definitely better than the full price might see more challenges getting are insurance company to cover it....

This post brought to you by ♿ (U+267f, a.k.a. WHEELCHAIR SYMBOL) 

gary lawson on 27 Mar 2011 6:20 AM:

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