The thing that surprised me the most were the ones that apparently saw the tremendous stability problems of the entire concept and decided to add an unguarded airplane propeller to the front to make sure any instability results in disaster.
Some of the mono-bi wheel tank designs people made models of<p><a href="https://youtu.be/i4p25rzPDw8?t=932" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/i4p25rzPDw8?t=932</a>
I wonder what the advantages of having a giant wheel rather than a unicycle version were seen to be? Were pneumatic tires non-existent? Is it a balance thing?<p>I think the quest of needing only one wheel never went away, today we have one-wheel skateboards and electric unicycles which might be looked at the same way in 100 years. (Or maybe we'll all finally adapt to rolling around on only one wheel)
In theory I suppose you could improve the braking ability quite a bit by having a flywheel spinning about an axis perpendicular to the axis the main wheel rotates at, to act a gyroscope and prevent the "gerbiling" problem the article mentions.
This guy rocks the mono wheel in parades! <a href="https://instagram.com/hunter_howell_?utm_medium=copy_link" rel="nofollow">https://instagram.com/hunter_howell_?utm_medium=copy_link</a>
the south park vehicle:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entity_(South_Park)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entity_(South_Park)</a>
For more monowheels, check out Douglas Self's Museum of Transport page (a wonderful old-days-of-the-internet style collection of obscure info). Here's the section on monowheels: <a href="http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/motorwhl/motorwhl.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/motorwhl/motorw...</a>
There is (was?) an art car at burning man that uses this principle. It was the first mutant vehicle I ever laid eyes on.<p><a href="https://imgur.com/a/Y5Q9Qq7" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/Y5Q9Qq7</a>
Those spokes on the "400 mph" monster monowheel would vaporize the pilot, like a giant inverted blender. Engineering safety has come a long way.