Self Balancing Arduino Robot

The opening of the video describes the difficulty (impossibility?) of balancing a bike with the handlebars locked.

I've had frustrating arguments with engineers on the degree to which the gyroscopic effect of the bicycle wheels are what keep the bike upright. They seemed to think it's the spinning wheels that allow you to balance. (I suppose in their minds this would explain why it is difficult to balance when rolling very slowly.)

Give the bike a brisk shove, I argue, with no one on it and see how far it balances. In my experience, a bicycle balances for about as long as it takes to fall over.

I see the rider+bike as an inverted pendulum ... or like someone balancing an inverted broom on the tip of their finger if you will. Steering is the rather counter-intuitive means by which one moves the contact point with the ground left and right under the larger mass (the rider) to balance it.

Maybe the opening to the video or the Arduino-controlled contraption (lacking gyroscopic wheels) will get more people to re-think this.

It does seem possible for some bicycles to roll quite far without a rider before falling over. I suspect there's some sort of natural feedback mechanism related to the angle of the front fork and the positioning of the wheels with respect to the axis the handlebars rotate on.

I also suspect this is related to the fact that some bicycles are clearly easier to ride without touching the handlebars than others.

I agree that the gyroscopic effect is minimal at low speeds. Bicycle design may take it into account somewhat at high speeds, but clearly people can ride bicycles at low speeds with small wheels where the impact of the gyroscopic effect would be minimal.

Consider the case of a Razor scooter. I seriously doubt 4-inch Wheels have any significant gyroscopic effect on the ride.