Hands on: Riding a Segway HT

Computerworld - Upon my arrival at Segway's headquarters in a former mill in downtown Manchester, N.H., I was taken to a second-floor office where the company keeps a couple of spare Segway Human Transporters (HTs, for short) on hand for demonstrations. For newbies, the HT's speed is restricted to a maximum of 5 mph with an electronic key, called a "learner key." The HT is capable of going 12.5 mph with an "advanced" key.
As it turns out, HTs are fairly easy to use when you're adequately instructed, as I was by Segway CIO Pat Zilvitis.
The first rule of thumb: Use common sense and don't just hop on an HT without first learning how to use one. Once you're in "balance" mode, lean forward, and you move forward. Lean back, and you go in reverse. Five gyroscopes and two tilt sensors respond to shifts in the center of gravity of your body weight. The more you shift your weight, the faster you go. Turn a handgrip clockwise or counterclockwise if you want to turn right or left.
The machine may go a little slower when going up a steep hill. If you want to walk the machine up a hill or up a set of stairs, you simply get off, take the machine out of balance mode by pressing a button, and tilt the HT slightly forward or backward depending on whether it's in front of you or behind. A twist of the turning control powers the unit forward or backward, acting as a power assist.
If you go too fast in reverse, the battery charge gets low, or you get off and forget to power down, the machine shudders like it's mad at you and goes through a safety shutdown.
After a few minutes of instruction, Zilvitis let me board the machine. If you step up on it carefully and don't lean too far forward or backward, he told me, you won't go anywhere. What a relief.
I started out, like most new riders probably do, by getting a feel for how the HT works. I leaned forward slightly and moved ahead a few feet. I leaned back a bit and went a few feet in reverse. I worked the grips and rotated to the right, then the left.
I made a point of not going too fast. Part of it was that I wanted to prove to Zilvitis and myself that I could ride one of these without falling off. But also, there were some Segway workers seated attheir desks a few feet away and, well, I doubt that they would have appreciated my crashing into them.
After riding the HT for a few minutes, I carefully stepped off and handed it back to Zilvitis. He then showed me how easily a veteran rider like himself can start and stop on a dime, maneuvering the machine right up to a "parking spot" by the wall near an electrical outlet to charge the battery before bringing it to an abrupt halt.
Pretty swift.

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