Pogo stick rental startup swears it’s not a joke | Hacker News Reader

Pogo stick rental startup swears it’s not a joke

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83 pointscpeterso83 comments

Just......no. Do these people know how exhausting it is to even pogostick across a single block? I can hardly do it, and I'm in very good shape.

There might be some niche in leaving them in parks and public places as entertainment pieces for bored passerby/tourists; but, as a transportation mechanism, just, no, I don't see it.

Electric assist pogosticks, then?

You heard it here first!

I've often thought that self-balancing tech could make powered unicycles practical (moreso than the few attempts we've seen so far). I don't see why pogo sticks shouldn't join them! :D

I would say there's more than a "few attempts" at powered unicycles - it's an entire industry, complete with expensive brands, cheap Chinese offerings, enthusiast forums, and listicles with titles like "top 10 electric unicycles to buy in 2019". The design has pretty much converged now.

I was considering getting one for my daily commute, but a part of me fears that no matter how skilled I got with it, riding over rough ground would still be a risky business. One pothole and your face is in the dirt. What would you change about current EUCs to make them more practical?

All of the ones I'm aware of balance front/back only, and still require quite a lot of skill to ride. I want to build one which can steer the wheel (using the mass of the rider as reaction mass) as well as spin it forwards/backwards, and so it can fully balance itself and rider.

I would love to have one of the Honda unicycle used in the Ok Go video (I won't let you down?), but I would never dare to try it on public streets...

Edit: they are called UNI-CUB https://global.honda/innovation/robotics/UNI-CUB.html

Presumably with Autopogo so you can have a nap or read HN while pogoing about?

Edit: Could we have self-pogoing pogo sticks that could come and pick me up? What a bright future we have waiting for us.

Edit2: What about delivering pogo sticks by drone?

>Edit2: What about delivering pogo sticks by drone?

Bruce Sterling did this already in the book 'Distraction'. He also had off-road vehicles with loads of pogostick legs.

edit - just re-read, did you mean pogo-stick drones that do delivery, or drones that deliver pogo-sticks? I went with the former, but am now not sure that is what you meant.

Headline: Unicyclist seen _cutting off_ Autopogo model L for going too slow in bike lane!

Autopogo reminds me of the shoes which will walk you home automatically from the TV show Red Dwarf.

Season 2 Episode 5, can't find the video snippet online quickly, but here's the transcript. Read with a British accent if you're unfamiliar with the show!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3duthb/smart_shoes/

And if the technology is not quite ready yet, you can always pre-sell a "Full Self Pogoing" option.

Yes, apparently the built-in hardware is sufficient and its just a software upgrade.

Regenerative braking with 90% energy recovery. You'll need it too because the ride is stop and go all the way.

Mechano-elastic regenerative braking utilizing 100% recyclable aluminium!

Didn’t Doctor Snuggles always use to travel by automated pogo stick?

When I was a frosh at CMU (1983) and working in the robotics lab, the lab next door was Marc Raibert's, and when his hopping robot was operating, everyone knew it. That thing was LOUD.

http://www.robothalloffame.org/inductees/08inductees/raibert...

Only when they come with AI and are cloud based.

Sorry to ask but as person from the Netherlands, is there any definition of the length of a "block"? And then, why not use meters? (Or feet if you want to of course?)

A block is just some arbitrarily short distance. It’s the distance between two cross streets, maybe 1/10th of a mile. It’s not intended to be precise.

It's worse than not precise, for a large part of the readership here it is utterly meaningless.

What do you mean by a "large part" of the readership. Is it precise?

Natural languages: where ambiguous meanings abound, and yet we manage to form complex social structures nonetheless.

Let me put it this way - as an European, I have literally never been to a city which is divided into blocks like the American cities are. Every time TV shows/movies mention "oh he ran 5 blocks!" I have no idea if I'm meant to be impressed or disappointed by the distance.

Oh I can translate! The city where I live has short distances between bus stops, just about two blocks. That means you have to walk at maximum one block to reach a bus stop.

I guess that makes sense - distance between bus stops in a city is usually relatively standard, it's a good unit of distance to think of.

As another European, I grew up in a city that was divided into blocks and where "couple blocks away" was idiomatic common expression.

I mean I know they exist - Barcelona is divided into blocks I think. But personally I've never been to a city like that.

Fair. Then you can think about it this way: the average difference between any two adjacent intersections in a given city.

Oh there's plenty of blocks in Vienna. They're just not necessarily rectangular.

Isn't a block a cuboid?

It sounds like you're conflating blocks and rectangular grid plan. A block is just a cluster of buildings in an urban or semiurban environment that don't have streets between them. They don't have to be rectangular. When used as an informal distance, it means the distance between subsequent urban cross-streets that you should be able to walk in about a minute. If you've been anywhere in Europe that has more people than sheep, then you've definitely seen blocks without realizing it.

Ah, OK, I assumed it was some standard demarcation - like in USA cities the modal average distance between crossroads (intersections) was 80m, or something.

In UK we say "to the next corner" sometimes (but not as a measurement, per se), I guess that would be equivalent?

It sounds like when you say "about a minute" that this would over-rule the "next intersection" part. So when you say "it's a blocks walk away" (or whatever) you're saying "it's a minute['s walk] away"?

> In UK we say "to the next corner" sometimes (but not as a measurement, per se), I guess that would be equivalent?

That would be 100% equivalent when counting blocks. "Go four blocks and then turn left" means "go left at the fourth intersection". There will inevitably be some interpretive ambiguity when one passes a T intersection that only goes right. Was that a block even though there was no available left turn? Did the person mean "pass three lefts and this one doesn't count because it's a right"? Nobody knows. It's why we name streets now.

> It sounds like when you say "about a minute" that this would over-rule the "next intersection" part.

When talking abstractly, yes. "A block's-worth of walking" cannot be interpreted with any particular block in mind, so one must use an imaginary platonic ideal of block length.

let's be real, I've been living in the US for 10 years now and almost 100% of the US cities are based on a rectangular grid plan. Almost all European cities are too old to have one unless they were rebuilt (ie. Baron Haussmann work in Paris). I don't think he's conflating, I had the same exact impression when hearing "I had to run 5 blocks"... it's just an American thing.

wtf? I've been to at least 10 European cities and they all had blocks that were of similar size to ones in American cities.

Which ones?

Yes, some people don’t know idiomatic English and just double down. Sorry about that.

Sounds like its probably a Commonwealth/United States type of thing, as there is another poster here from Australia who said they know what it means. I'm from Canada and it makes perfect sense to me.

It's not meaningless; you just don't know the meaning. If I were on a website where a good fraction of the people were Francophones, and someone slipped in the word "beaucoup", I wouldn't complain that it's utterly meaningless -- I would politely ask what it meant, or look it up in a dictionary.

I understood instantly. In south and north america people use “block”... not sure about brazil though

Every city/town/village that has intersecting roads has blocks... It's not incomprehensible.

In my South American corner of the world, blocks are about 100m. Most cities there are relatively new (specially when compared to European ones), so most of them were planned from the beginning.

US blocks are 1/10th of a mile or ~500ft. So each block Can be really far from the next.

Please, we're not that consistent. In Chicago there's 8 blocks to the mile.

I never implied we were. But the newer the city the more consistent the pattern. Most of the post war city planning is 500ft, baring geographical concerns. But a typical US city block is larger than Parisian block which is about 300ft, on average.

I only said that because your statement could be interpreted as an absolute.

Even in a city like NYC which is a grid in many areas, blocks aren't really standard. Uptown (N/S) Manhattan blocks (about 20 per mile) are shorter than cross-town blocks. Crosstown are about 3x that but vary quite a bit.

300 ft.-600 ft. or 100m-200m (which I'd hardly consider a long distance) is not a bad rule of thumb but it's certainly not a standard.

As an Australian, I've always used "block" to mean an arbitrary short distance, up to maybe 1 km.

It's not an actual measurement, but rather a figure of speech. Just like "round the corner" doesn't actually mean literally around the corner.

> Sorry to ask but as person from the Netherlands, is there any definition of the length of a "block"?

In both Amsterdam and Hague, city blocks (when they exist) seem to be surprisingly similar in size to those in Manhattan, New York. About 50-70 meters in one direction and 150-200 meters in the other direction.

That movie... if anything feels like a parody, this is it.

> how exhausting it is to even pogostick across a single block? I can hardly do it, and I'm in very good shape.

Bro, do you even pogo?

Yeah, but if you view it as a novel way to get people to download an app and later the app offers scooters, bikes, and rides you can see where it might be going...

I'm not saying pogo sticks as an onboarding strategy is a great idea but its also not nearly the worst idea i've ever encountered from a startup.

Is it not? Haven't we just spend 2 days reading/talking about them? Seems to be working out well for them so far.

The opening paragraph has one of their Psychologist angel investors saying exactly this.

Exactly... nobody who has ever tried going any significant distance on a pogo stick would ever mistake this for a real transportation alternative.

I stumbled upon another example of seemingly non-sensical potato-printing-and-mailing businesses in a Twitter post[0] yesterday. Mailaspud is actually going strong since at least 2014 so it's definitely not a joke.

At this point I will believe anything.

[0]: https://twitter.com/Paul_Courtney/status/1136274715092377605

Still makes more sense than renting pogosticks.

origami boulder is also still going strong...

http://www.origamiboulder.com

The fact that we even have to ask this means that the industry has already jumped the shark.

Nothing can beat child-adoption Tinder though.

> child-adoption Tinter

'Adoptly' if anyone was wondering.

Luckily, it was satire.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/31/14455622/adoptly-app-tind...

That's what I always say about my business ideas when I start getting the death threats though.

Gullible people also thought Bonsai Kittens was real too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

An “ongoing satirical art project”[0] in case anyone was wondering.

[0] https://live.engadget.com/2017/01/31/sketchy-adoption-app-ad...

Puppy Swap to get a cute puppy and trading it for another when it grows up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b83TI2hmixY

"It’s important to note that the marketing came from ODD Company, an agency known for elaborate campaigns, such as grass slippers, that involve creating fictional products or staging stunts for an existing brand."

It is a joke? They say it right there in the article, it's just a stunt they're doing to get the brand out there

"He also emphasizes that Cangoroo plans to expand to different kinds of vehicles in the future—but will not say what kind yet—raising the possibility that the pogo sticks are a seat-of-the-pants attempt at drawing attention to the company’s future endeavors."

Ayup.

I think it would work better as marketing if they hadn't just admitted that it was. Could still mention the scooters, just claim that they are a minor side business to your pogostick empire.

Every time the topic of pogo sticks comes up, I have to fight the urge to buy a Vurtego V4[0].

[0] https://www.vurtegopogo.com/v4-pogo-stick/

how long until people start playing pogo polo?

Sounds a lot less dangerous than horse pogo to me, to be honest.

10ft+ jump potential?? that's really incredible

This is their biggest rival https://www.gopogogo.com/

having just fallen off one right before my second bounce... I can say this sounds more dangerous than I would have first thought. I landed on my tailbone - head helmets don't seem nearly useful enough. I'm grateful nothing was broken but 2 weeks later I still have occasional stabs of pain from that.

I tried one once years ago. I admittedly don't have the world's best balance but it was much harder than I would have expected. I'm sure there are some people for whom it's relatively effortless with a bit of practice but they wouldn't seem to be the target market for rentals.

Hard to believe this isn't at least somewhat tongue in cheek/PR.

Can Repelling Magnets Replace the Spring in a Pogo Stick?:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18694006

Too hard to opt out to tracking from this site. Wont read.

here you go: https://outline.com/yJL5cm

Thank you very much sir, i could not remember the name of this site. Just bookmarked it

Doesn't it destroy your knees?

Just have your legs replaced with pogo implants.

Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen....

Yo?

Actually, it's launching in my city and the area around my apartment would be wonderful for a pogo-stick. The scooters are very much frowned upon here but I'd rent a pogo stick for a bit!

They are going to end up in the ocean en-masse though.

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