Concept of a balancing robot

The inspiration for Gyro Boy is the Segway robot. The LEGO community has been building LEGO MINDSTORMS two-wheeled balancing robots almost since the introduction of the Segway by Dean Kamen. The real Segway is a two-wheeled motorized personal transport device that uses several Gyro Sensors to detect the pitch and pitch rate of the vehicle. The real Segway uses additional Gyro Sensors for redundancy and to detect roll (turning left and right). The physics model for a Segway is what we call the inverted pendulum problem. A simple pendulum has its pivot point at the top and the bob swings back and forth below the pivot. An inverted pendulum has this pivot point at the bottom with the bob oscillating above the pivot. We can think of a metronome or even a human being as simple inverted pendulums. In the case of the Segway, the goal is to minimize the oscillations and keep the vehicle upright and then provide movement forward, backwards, as well as turn left or/and...