Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard • Hacker News Board

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#91

Post by 001sky » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:04 PM UTC

zhyder wrote: post #81

johnyzee wrote: post #49

I have been riding an electric skateboard through Copenhagen for a few years (Evo 600: http://en.evo-skate.com/street600wood/ ). We have great bicycle tracks all over the city which is ideal. The principle of the board is the same, board strapped with an electric motor, controlled by IR remote in the hand. I'll share a few thoughts. First off, my board has a 600 watt motor and does around 20mph, which is fast in the…

Regarding the dangerous speeds that a 2kW motor could propel you to, the full 2kW might only be used when going uphill. At 100% efficiency, 2kW will let a 75kg person travel at 10 meters/s [1] (sprinting speed) on a 15% incline. [1] 2000 / (75 * 9.8 * sin (15))

As a cyclist, 15 deg incline is steep. Honestly, steeper than all but rural roads and even then rare. There might be some hills like that in SF. Even in the mountains, graded switchbacks are not nearly that steep, for the most part.

Which beings me to who and why would you want to ride down something so steep on a skateboard? I have a hill a mile from my house, thats ~200 vertical feet, and a around a 1/4 mile, its 12 degrees max on my GPS topo. I'm easily 35-45 mph on this, coasting. No hands descent would be NFW. 40 mph on a skateboard and there is a piece of gravel on the road, I'm not sure a Helmet will even help you with the face-plant potential.

But other than that, I think for a flat city it may be of interest. Or even a flat-ish area like soma/mission. But Manhattan? Nah. I'd pass. Maybe in the sub-urbs or exurbs? Where its just a long slog down a random road to the store or whatever would be more interesting. There is a lot of sprawl out there. And this would be cooler than a segway =D.

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#92

Post by mahyarm » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:12 PM UTC

skdoo wrote: post #13

mahyarm wrote: post #7

Are they waterproof? Could I ride this in Seattle & SF rain all the time without damaging it? Otherwise it's just a fair weather vehicle and it's not something I can rely on. If not, why would I choose this over all the other electric skateboards? Is it safe to use on the steep downgrades you have in SF? Is it useless to use when going uphill on those same hills?

The electronics will be somewhat water resistant, but we don't recommend riding in the rain. A big reason for that is the wheels (from standard longboards) are slicks and are somewhat dangerous in wet weather. It is very capable at uphill climbing and downhill braking. Our ability to stay standing on it is usually the limiting factor. As for why you would choose this over others, it's the lightest, has way more power…

It's unfortunate nobody has made a waterproof electric skateboard yet, it's what makes me stop buying any of them. How would it perform with knobby all terrain tires?

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#93

Post by qq66 » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:22 PM UTC

zekel wrote: post #77

qq66 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industry should use words like "brilliant" instead of "magical" to emphasize the skill and dedication required to create amazing products, instead of tacitly implying that they are outputs of inscrutable black-box processes. Kids who ride this skateboard realize that someday, they could engineer something even better than it.

I'm not sure kids with imagination get stuck on semantics like that.

Word choice absolutely does affect how people think. Terms like "intelligent design" exploit this by cloaking nonsense in the guise of logic, and if you explain to a kid that a lightbulb or an electric skateboard works by "magic" that's a lot less inspiring than saying "a kid just like you studied how things work and invented it."

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#94

Post by nostromo » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:23 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #82

These contraptions are illegal to use in public and if they become popular the laws against them will be enforced immediately, because they're incredibly dangerous. It is impossible to provide effective braking on a skateboard. The rider has absolutely no means of impeding their forward movement, so even if the board has effective brakes it's just going to throw them off. This is a minor problem if you're rolling aro…

"More than 49,000 pedalcyclists have died in traffic crashes in the United States since 1932 — the first year in which estimates of pedalcyclist fatalities were recorded. In 2005, 784 pedalcyclists were killed and an additional 45,000 were injured in traffic crashes." http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810617.pdf

That's a huge number. By one source cyclists are 10x more likely to die per each mile traveled than motorists.

Should bike makers be "rightly" sued out of existence? Should we ban bikes completely?

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#95

Post by hollerith » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:31 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #82

These contraptions are illegal to use in public and if they become popular the laws against them will be enforced immediately, because they're incredibly dangerous. It is impossible to provide effective braking on a skateboard. The rider has absolutely no means of impeding their forward movement, so even if the board has effective brakes it's just going to throw them off. This is a minor problem if you're rolling aro…

Sounds like you've never ridden a skateboard or done so for only a very short time.

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#96

Post by jeremyarussell » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:32 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #82

These contraptions are illegal to use in public and if they become popular the laws against them will be enforced immediately, because they're incredibly dangerous. It is impossible to provide effective braking on a skateboard. The rider has absolutely no means of impeding their forward movement, so even if the board has effective brakes it's just going to throw them off. This is a minor problem if you're rolling aro…

When a pebble hits underneath my skateboard the reason the skateboard stops and I continue is because ME moving was why the skateboard was moving. In the case of a powered wheel I'll hit the pebble and keep going and keep going, sense the wheel itself is still turning.

I repeat, the wheel is turning, not being turned by inertia and friction.

As for the breaking, I can train myself to lean back when I hit the break, and lean forward when I hit the accelerator. It's not that hard.

PS: I would hope to Jebus that someone would be wearing a helmet and other protective gear with this.

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#97

Post by frankus » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:33 PM UTC

luser001 wrote: post #39

Pretty interesting idea! Serious question by a non-skateboarer: Unlike the Segway this doesn't provide any stability assistance, right? How safe would it be for a newbie to start using this? I'd be worried about falling off this thing. AFAIK, the Segway goes to great lengths to mitigate that risk [although GWB managed to defeat those systems :)].

Segways are actually pretty hard to ride if you've ever ridden a standard skateboard. The stability control gain needs to be super high because it's so tippy, so you can easily get it to oscillate if you're not used to riding a self-balancing vehicle.

The acceleration stability problem for electric longboards is actually totally solvable (and solved, just not in a commercially-available machine) by detecting the rider's weight distribution.

I built a prototype back in '06 that (unlike the zboard) had the weight sensing system distributed over the entire deck, so there was no fiddly stance that you had to maintain.

It was super intuitive to ride, even for beginners, and had just an on-off switch as a controller (I used a little car-alarm-style key fob).

I teamed up with a buddy in Vancouver to improve it, and we converted it from a single rear hub motor to dual front hub motors (so no belts or anything to wear out or break). We showed it off at the Bay Area Maker Faire in '07.

On the trip back our prototype got stolen, and real life intruded, and we haven't done much with it since. I'd love to get another unit put together soon though.

http://3wdm.blogspot.com/ for more info.

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#98

Post by guelo » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:34 PM UTC

001sky wrote: post #91

zhyder wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the dangerous speeds that a 2kW motor could propel you to, the full 2kW might only be used when going uphill. At 100% efficiency, 2kW will let a 75kg person travel at 10 meters/s [1] (sprinting speed) on a 15% incline. [1] 2000 / (75 * 9.8 * sin (15))

As a cyclist, 15 deg incline is steep. Honestly, steeper than all but rural roads and even then rare. There might be some hills like that in SF. Even in the mountains, graded switchbacks are not nearly that steep, for the most part. Which beings me to who and why would you want to ride down something so steep on a skateboard? I have a hill a mile from my house, thats ~200 vertical feet, and a around a 1/4 mile, its 1…

SF actually has streets that reach over 30 deg incline.

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#99

Post by brc » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:34 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #82

These contraptions are illegal to use in public and if they become popular the laws against them will be enforced immediately, because they're incredibly dangerous. It is impossible to provide effective braking on a skateboard. The rider has absolutely no means of impeding their forward movement, so even if the board has effective brakes it's just going to throw them off. This is a minor problem if you're rolling aro…

The part about braking just isn't true. Sure, there is a stopping limit for any braked device - a bicycle cannot stop any faster than it's wheels can hold friction. I've crashed bikes several times from emergency stops (bikes don't have abs). You can stop any type of board-device and stay on, as long as the friction between the board and the rider is greater than the wheels and the road. You don't automatically flip off the end of a board while braking any more than you flip over the handlebars on a bike - that's because you adjust your position when braking, and more so when braking hard.

Re: Boosted Boards (YC S12) Unveils Its Magical Electric Skateboard

#100

Post by brc » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 11:40 PM UTC

brokentone wrote: post #20

This is way cool, but the company has a few challenges to face to be "serious, eco-friendly transportation devices that could replace your bike, scooter, or maybe even your car." I live and work in manhattan and for the summer I've been skating to and from work nearly every day (40ish blocks). According to my research, skateboards are considered "play" devices. Whereas bikes and all motorized vehicles are required to…

In my local area skateboards are legal on the street except if it has a centre line marker (ie, a white line dividing traffic).

In my opinion, the laws should be uniform regardless of the device (e-bike, e-skateboard, e-whatever). This means restricted to certain types of roads, and possibly allowed on the sidewalk but with speed limits.