Self-Balancing Unicycle | Focus Designs, Inc. » Company Blog

SBU V3 versus SBU V2 (Performance)

dmart — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:44:38 +0000

Not only is the SBU V3 capable of attracting larger herds of women, it also has a dramatic increase in performance. This performance increase is due to two main reasons, a smaller wheel (18″) and an increased battery voltage (58V). The smaller wheel provides more torque and hill-climbing (30% grade) while the increased battery voltage gives users a higher ceiling for maximum speed, now 15mph. Combine these two together and riding the V3 feels like a muscle car.

We took both the V2 and V3 out for a side by side comparison on a small incline and did some official shopping cart push tests in the QFC parking lot… I’m sure they were happy.

Hello 2012!

dwood — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:32:47 +0000

Hello fellow n3rds,

Wow, our last post was made in the summer months – it has definitely been a while since we’ve kept the world updated on whats going on over here. We had increasingly more traction all over the world selling SBU’s. We’ve had a lot of awesome moments this last year but nothing tops meeting and connecting with our customers. We plan on more tours and more cool stuff for our customers in 2012. We’ll be a little more specific in following posts.

Until then… stay nerdy!

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Segway Polo and the Self Balancing Unicycle

dwood — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:23:36 +0000

California trip #2 was awesome. This time we primarily stayed in Folsom as we were attending the International Segway Polo Cup, AKA: “The Woz Cup“. We did get to meet Woz (Co-founder of Apple, Inc.)

David Martschinske and Steve Wozniak

I was really excited to meet Woz and yes, his player number is 3.14 If you line up the whole team (STeam) in a row they all spell out pi to the 16th number. That gives you an idea of the kind of people I was running in to on a reglar basis at the Woz Cup 2011. Speaking of meeting interesting people, a lot of you may know Smosh. Ian does a lot of YouTube video parodies and made a pretty interesting video of what he thought of the Segway Polo Cup 2011.

And before we start the SBU Polo league, I thought I’d give it a trial run. I may have looked like a dingus out there but at least I had an awesome time playing polo with the Segs4Vets crew while on the SBU!

Self Balancing Unicycle Polo

If you’d like to see more images of our trip go here

Using the Tektronix TDS2024C Scope on the SBU

dwood — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:25:19 +0000

Heres a quick video we made for a Tektronix contest. It’s something quick we slapped together with some old footage that we had and hopefully we will score a new scope from Tek!

You also get a chance to officially see “Gimpy” – the original idea that launched the SBU.

Vote “or die” here: Vote at MyTektronixScope.com

And if anyone out there is looking for a great scope go ahead and give Gary Martschinske an email for a sweet deal.

Focus Designs meets Trevor Blackwell and the Anybot

dwood — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 22:49:30 +0000

Many of you SBU enthusiasts know who Trevor Blackwell is but you might not be aware of his most-recent endeavor, the Anybot (a personal robotic avatar). As we traveled through California on our Left Coast Tour we had a chance to meet Trevor along with a few of the Anybot engineers and some people from the Y-Combinator (including Olark). The whole crew was able to pick up the SBU fairly quickly and before long we were SBUing along the street with them at close to top speed – all while carrying the stedicam to our 5dmk2 for our daily vlog. It was really cool to meet and speak with a bunch of like-minded entrepreneurs and of course to see them lovin’ the SBU!

Left Coast Tour Day 7 – Irvine and Beverly Hills

dwood — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:56:23 +0000

The N3rd H3rd ventures back north as we made a quick stop by Beverly Hills on Oscar night… Yikes. We met up with our friends at the Beverly Hills Bike shop (who will be stocking SBU’s shortly) as well as Jack and Jerri who have a really cool aerobatics addition to their house we got to try out.

Watch our vlog for our zany adventures.

Left Coast Tour Day 6 – Laguna Beach

dwood — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:18:41 +0000

The people of Laguna Beach are awesome. I can’t say that enough. We met some awesome “rolfers” Joshua and Heather who invited us out for sushi and sake. We later ran into Jan and Dan who invited us back to their really cool hotel for drinks. Congratulations Jan and Dan for your 28 year anniversary!

Day 6 is in Laguna Beach again for a reason… I don’t think we want to leave! But alas, we have a few more bike shops we really would like to hit up and then we begin our trek back to Portlandia. So far everything has flown very smoothly and we have made a ton of really cool contacts down here.

Hope you like today’s vlog. Warning, it’s kinda long and we are dorks.

Left Coast Tour Day 5 – Laguna Beach

dwood — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 09:12:38 +0000

Today’s checklist:

Let people try the SBU: Check

Cruise down Laguna Beach: Check

Have a friend take you out for $40 steaks: Check

Experience guest service inside the men’s room: Check

Yeah, today was rockin’ and I think we’re in love with the area here as well as the people. We met so many cool people and ended the night at Javier’s Cantina & Grill where the food was impeccable and the service was even better. Along the way we ran into a bunch of party-goers, were chased down by people that saw us from their cars, and met a few protesters. Take a look at the video and see for yourself what we did today.

On the business-side of things, Daniel and I also sought out the counsel of a more seasoned entrepreneur and helped confirm our confidence in our current business strategy.

We are continuing to visit specialty bike shops in the area over here and look forward to meeting more awesome shops!

-DMart, Out!

Left Coast Tour Day 4 – Oakland, CA

dwood — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 18:24:50 +0000

We met with some cool people on Wednesday at Stanford. One of the guys we met suggested that we have promotional pillow fights on the SBU. We are taking applications for the best pillow-fighter at info@focusdesigns.com. Send in your pillowfighting resume and we’ll consider you as a potential athlete.

On Thursday, we went to a really cool company in Emeryville, CA and hung out with a ton of their employees. They had a huge indoor atrium and we were able to ride in there and train a lot of their employees. We also met up with one of our past customers and made plans for dinner. Woot Woot. It was awesome to re-connect with him.

Later we visited Segway of Oakland and had a bomb time with the workers and owner there. They were pretty laid back and all of em got on the SBU and gave it a shot. They definitely liked it and will probably also become an SBU dealer shortly. Woot!

For those of you who keep asking, we are finally accepting applications for dealers. Shoot an email to sales@focusdesigns.com to see if you qualify.

-N3rd H3rd OUT!

Left Coast Tour Day 3 – Palo Alto

dwood — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:30:52 +0000

Today was a little more on the business end of activities and because of that we do not have a video for you today. We were fortunate enough to finally visit one of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program’s weekly seminars, It’s definitely something that has been on my bucket-list for a long time. Today happend to be Bill Gross, Founder of Idealab and Chairman of the Board of eSolar. We were absolutely thrilled to spend time with fellow entrepreneurs and talk shop after hearing him speak.

It was very encouraging to be able to speak with all these other like-minded people and feel that they were supporting us and almost cheering for our success as we continue to grow. If there’s one thing we noticed it’s that we are very appealing to investors because of the product we have in-hand and currently in production.

At any length, we are very excited to be visiting Pixar tomorrow to do a product demonstration and meet all the cool dudes there!

N3rd H3rd Unite!