Wheelie Cheat Device? 

Thanks to everyone that watched more than 6 seconds of this video!! To the others, thanks for the wheelie advice 😂

The software brings the nose down? You've turned your bike into a 737 MAX 8.

these minecraft building tutorials are getting harder and harder

Do it like a cruise control, you pull a wheelie then press a button to set the angle, then the electronics take over and maintain that angle

Hey Tom, Might be worth logging the way you do a wheelie first - by taking the data from the accelerometer and a potentiometer on your brake handle. This should get your native wheelie angle and brake force applied, once this data is obtained you could match it with your servo or even continue to use the POT to match a force applied to the brake with the servo. Obviously this is in no way dynamic like the segway as it will be matched completely to your wheelie profile.

The easiest way to do a wheelie for me is just riding my unicycle.

Try to go uphills with that (:

Why is your rear brake lever on the left? :o Does everything have to be left-hand drive in the UK? :D

The world needs more engineers like you. Hands on and educated.

Add a potentiometer on the steeringwheel to adjust the balancing point on the fly?

I think it could be done completely automatically if the control system was operating the motor rather than the brake, and was able to sense the amount of torque applied to the motor compared to motor position. Comparing wheel torque with both angular and linear acceleration should allow a controller to differentiate between forward movement and tilt change. In this way, the controller could seek the angle at which required torque is minimized. It would not be that different from other self-balancing devices.

Youre going to need to filter the sensor values to smooth the result

Its amazing to see how much you have developed from here until now. From being new with arduino and unsure with coding to your later videos where you have been using arduino in your VTOL aircraft. Great stuff, from a proud patreon

It's a wheelie good idea Tom!

Very interesting. There are many ways one could go about the design to get the end result but you've actually put in the time and energy. Good job

If you can measure the speed, and then calculate the rate of the change of speed - acceleration of the bike, on top of the angle sensor, you have enough information to compensate for all of those "balance torque, including the riders arms", weird angles (the angle it's mounted no longer matter when you only measure rate, but you still want it to check it's not zero due to "both wheels on ground" I guess) stuff you were talking about... when you have acceleration = 0 and the rate of change of angle = 0 then all those dynamic torques/weights/etc are in balance. if the rider leans forward, then the angle rate increases, and to zero that out, the bike will need to accelerate, which means non-zero acceleration... Drive your control system to zero both out, and you have balance. You can drive "break only" with the same control system, was just easier to talk about assuming perfect rear wheel motor power output control. I hope that made sense.

No Way!!! I've been working on this exact concept for a few weeks now and you beat me to it!! Anyway, I love the videos man keep it up!

I think the solution is to monitor the rate of agular change not set an absolute angle, this would give allot more flexibility , not to mention it wouldn't pull the brake when you go up a hil :p

Been following your video for the engineering but also learning to wheelie (can almost do it after 2-3 months on/off). I'm not surprised the tuning is so difficult as its very dependent on your position on the bike and its quite a fine adjustment. Very impressed that you can do the engineering AND can wheelie too!

i hope people know how scary it is not having your finger on the brake when wheeling and dont think he is just pussing out :D

these kind of coding and servo related videos I have really wanted to see for a long time! Please do more projects like this :P

Hi Tom; cool project once again! What I think is working against you the most, from a control theory perspective, is the amount of 'play' in the brake system. These electronics have a nonzero reaction time in the first place, and once the system reacts the servo first has to pull itself through the non-activated part of the brake; which makes any delays so much worse. Of course you can try and counteract this by making the servo more aggressive; but that makes for a very jolty system. Things would probably improve a lot of you calibrated the servo-brake mechanism to have some pre-tension, so that at rest it is not-quite-engaged, so any servo input will more or less directly and proportionally engage the brake. Play in your system is notoriously difficult to correct for in any control system, and it definitely obeys a 'less is less' kind of dynamic. A PID loop by itself will do little to correct this characteristic, and can even lead to really annoying chatter. Its based on linear theory and play is intrinsically a nonlinear feature (or plateau) in your input-output relationship.

I love playing with IMUs, it’s so satisfying playing with your creations when it’s orientation dependent

What I love about your videos is you show everything "warts 'n' all". Real world engineering is about examining challenges, proposing, developing and testing solutions, but, without immense resources, there will always be assumptions or variables that weren't considered, which means that things often don't work perfectly first time or at the very least can be improved. You aren't afraid to show the imperfections and design iterations that are what real-world engineering is all about. Our 'failures' or imperfect designs and consequent design iterations are always the greatest learning experiences which is what makes your videos so much more valuable as a viewer. I wonder if this challenge can be more easily solved using the electric bike, since you will gain potentially finer control of both torques acting on the wheel? I suspect the rider's mass distribution is by far the largest variable though. The segway also has things much easier as the torque control is provided by the same mechanism, i.e. the motor that drives the wheels, which is probably easier to characterise than a friction brake and gives finer control than a simple mechanism such as you've implemented can provide - the braking force is going to be quite non-linear for any friction brake ultimately. It's an impressive video though and very successful given the time spent on it! Maybe a dedicated wheelie bike without a rear freewheel allowing the motor to provide propulsion and braking forces? Unicycle?

Would be cool try something like this on my wheelchair :D

A motor spinning the front wheel will give you a gyroscope on the front end. I used to see a guy riding wheelies around entire motocross tracks with such a set up. He toured the circuit, I believe he called himself "The Wheelie King"

That's a nice little shop you've made for your projects. Good work. Good explaining. Well Done.

As a "senior statesmen" of watching RC stuff online and finding your channel awhile ago I have to say you are very good at teaching old dogs new tricks. I have been interested in seeing what Adrino was. Thank You for doing something with this.

Dang. That is one advanced wheeliebar...

You could add a tare button for level

Great start, and thanks for the inspiration! I'd never for a moment have imagined that such a simple servo-brake setup would work AT ALL. Also amazing and really encouraging to see just how many people are working on the same idea - why, there's enough just here to make a forum... I agree that you should use the gyro reading to track your rotational moments, and maybe blend with some PID mechanism. Someone also mentioned that it's a non-linear "inverse pendulum" problem. I'd like to hear more about that. I wonder if some Machine Learning would be of use here, too? I'll probably start experimenting with a model, my wheelies are pretty poor (read nonexistent). I also prefer to use ESP chips. You can program them in the same IDE as Arduino, but they are quite a bit more powerful, and cheaper. Built-in WiFi also facilitates remote logging or RC control. Really cool to see there's so much support, hey this may work out now! Can't wait to see what else, erm... comes up :) ==== PS. I am also shocked, I say, shocked!! to find out that some benighted (LOL) countries put the rear brake on the right. Motorbike riders must just love that...

Amazing idea. Nice to see all the technology and you rely on adjusting the length of a piece of wire. Great to see you invention.

What about taking the concept to RC? you could use some quad motors to make a direct drive RC car with stability control. Endless endos and wheelies. Plus you could publish the design so I could build one.

1:35 thats a proper cuppa

Amazing Videos. Your videos always inspire me to create new things and work on old projects I gave up.

Yes dude! I've been wanting to try this ever since I saw the alta motorcycle. They could have a wheelie mode on it. You would just have to lean back twist the throttle and the bike would find its own balance point. The brake is one way to do it, you could also wire it to control entirely with the throttle. Glad people have started experimenting!

Is this the MPU-6050 accelerometer-gyro? If so, would you mind linking the code you used to interpret pitch angle?

For the life of me, I could never do a wheelie.

Love these quick cool ideas and implementation. Cool to see you start using arduinos. Great stuff as always dude :)

Cool stuff! I bought that exact kit about a year ago and it's changed my life. The arduino in combo with raspberry pi and a 3d printer and one can do lottsa stuff!

Make a model RC bike.

What if you're riding up a hill? The autobrake will definetly make it far more difficult ;)

19:23 Nice job Tom. I couldn't do these videos without you either.

Add a potentiometer. Code it to adjust the angle of the balance point. Take a lot of the weight out of the setting so you turn the potentiometer a lot and move the angle a little. Add a second potentiometer and use one for High Gain and one for low gain. Set the length of your break wire to where you're happy and don't touch it again, you should just adjust the software not the hardware ( once you get it to the right length ) in my opinion. I'm currently working on a drifting/racing/R.C./GPS/riding lawn mower with a working mower deck. This thing wouldn't be possible without you and your Channel. Thank you so very much.

Now you need to wire your esc with that arduino for automatic wheeling 😂

Okay, for real. I misread your name as Train Station... im so sorry 😅

as a former kid that tinkered with anything i could get my hands on , and now 52 and still at it,things like this kit are so damn cool to me. kids today have no idea how lucky they are ,to be living in great times like we have today. for anyone to be able to just look up ,order ,and get it days later is amazing fun.and so cheep.

I love all the interesting ideas you come up with on this channel! Even when they’re simple ideas they’re still super interesting and I always want to stay tuned in to see how things turn out. 🤙

Your back brake is on the left wtf

Balancing a bike would be a classic inverse pendulum problem, its a non-linear problem and will take a bunch more math than just implementing a PID controller.

Tom: "Ever wondered if you can make a wheelie cheat device for your bike?" Me: "I can't even ride a bike." Tom:"Yeah, me too."

19:23 "I honestly couldn't do these videos without me" I think you were right the first time. :)

Just learn how to do a wheelie without that crap. Lol

Great idea Tom! I’m impressed with your arduino work for a first time. Maybe look into filtering your values from the accelerometer to avoid actuation jitters in the servo. Keep up the good work

You also need to account for the forward acceleration adding to the perceived angle the accelerometer is measuring with every pedal push. You would probably need to measure the rear wheel rotational speed and add a correction value based on that.

Truly excellent project. If I may share some thoughts: 1) It would be possible to have the Arduino read a handlebar mounted pot to facilitate a field adjustable braking starting point for the braking process. Pots can be read by a standard Arduino with 8 bits resolution. Some inexpensive microcontrollers can read with 12 or even 16 bits resolution. 2) Likewise, it may be possible to have the Arduino read a separate pot to field adjust the slope of a line describing the increase in servo rotation per degree of tilt, thus resultant caliper tension. 3) One could self-enforce consistent elbow angle, or measure the distance between, say, the handlebar stem and the rider's chest using a standard general purpose ultrasonic range sensor or specialized infrared drone ground proximity sensor

I've been using arduino for years and I didn't know you could graph the output!!! That's going to change everything! Thanks!

Great work so far! You may want to look into averaging some number of values from the sensor. This will act like a debounce / filter so the servo doesn’t jitter as much. The trade off is latency to brake activation. Also, verify that you are using gyro data and not accelerometer data. The accelerometer will provide false data during any velocity change, versus the gyro data measuring angle. PID code and Kalman filters will help.

Excited to see you working with Arduino / electronics. Another great video :)

Genius!!! I have to try this. Thanks for the ideas!

Tom, love it! I have thought a lot about the physics of the wheelie/manual, and am finally making some progress with my wheelies. However, for me its not the fore/aft that's tricky, but the lateral balancing (side to side). I think it would be great if you could adapt your devices for lateral balancing. Lots of the problems you describe at the end of the vid wouldn't be an issue, as lateral balance wouldn't depend on the angle of the bike (to some extent). You could fix a weight (~2Kg perhaps) in the middle triangle and have it shift left and right. Might need a more powerful servo though!

Really enjoyed this concept, thanks Tom.

Well done! This was fascinating. I’m subscribing to see more! Thanks for sharing.

I learned to ride a wheelie in 1976 , my bike is 20" with a coaster brake , my longest is 5.5 miles @ 2 to 3 mph no greater than 5 mph . Curiosity made me watch this and I must applaud how deep you have delved into the physics using electrical components . That device you created is equally terrifying as it is terrific . My mind is blown by your whole concept and I have nothing but accolades and applauses for your efforts . Simply Magnificent , especially for a prototype . I would deem that a first round success if I were you .

I was so excited when I saw the title! You should hook it up to your e-bikes motor and use the acceleration from that to balance the wheelie!

Thanks for going down this route. I've thought about this and this is the first time I've seen someone take a stab at it. Great job!

When you love bikes and love nerdy stuff and you bring the two together love it and its simple keep it up mate 👍

perfect use case! IoT + bicycles: exactly my type of personal and business interest!

Brilliant Project and excellent video . Well done duuude

I would think that a control loop rather than an open loop linear function would help, but it practically may be impossible..... Great video Tom!

These videos are the best... reminds me of my own tinkering while growing up.

Wanted to use an Arduino so you created this amazing design to push yourself, bravissimo!

Awesome man! You may put a trimpot/potenciometer so you can adjust the kick-angle on the field without having to reprogram the board

This could be used on every motorcycle. Companies should be interested in this simple yet great idea.

Great project, i would suggest looking at PID's or MIMO's could potentially code a feedback loop that will try to keep an angle or even find a stable angle on its own.

1:45 If I try to have tea while working I always forget about it - you're brave tommy boy

This is so brilliant I can’t find words! 🤩

Awesome idea, doing it with the brake is the right way so it'll work on non-elec bikes too, although for v2, do it with hydraulics in-line somehow to remove the leaver lag and slack.

Another cool project Mr Stanton. Keep it up.

Fascinating experiment!

Great work mate!

First Principles Thinking in Physics framework is really helpful for so many problem solving :)

Hi Tom, great stuff. It's always interesting hearing you think through the problems. A few thoughts you may want to consider : If you wanted to account for the riders relative position to the bike, it would be interesting to put a second inclinometer/gyro on the back of the rider. It won't give you distance, but may give you some kind of trim to your controller. If you set up an sd card (I assume there is one in your dev kit) you could try logging a "perfect" wheelie to see what angles you need to start applying the break. (it may also give you some nice plots for your content). With a second gyro you may see a relationship that can be used to improve your control loop I would put a bit of averaging in to the system to remove the gitter (maybe an IIR filter?). If your getting angle from an accelerometers, it's going to noisy. I've done a couple of PID's on 8bit micros in the past and it can be challenging. You probably only need the P and a little bit of I. There are some useful libraries out there for the arduino where you set up your Kp Ki and Kd gain and let the function do the work for you. I don't usually post comments... Ever... But I do find your channel very interesting. I hope my input is of some interest /help. Keep up the great work. Thank you Matt

Genius 40 yrs to late for me. I learned the old fashion way. You never cease to amaze me.

Nice project board & case! :D Protip: When using those external power regulators on a nano, put a schottky diode between the power reg and the nano's 5V line - that way you can still plug the nano in to usb without problems :)

Very informative and well put together video.

super nice tom!

Great project as always. If this device is just meant to prevent loop outs you're oh so close! If the brake reacted to rate of angular change providing a short sharp stab of rear brake when you're over your tuned threshold you'd have much more consistent results given the variables you've already identified. This is one of your most commercially viable tinkerings, happy coding!

Love your logic. Good fun having a play with these ideas. Maybe if the arduino could also measure the rate of angle change & incorporate the data into its logic. That way the brake could be applied equally as well for a light person & heavy person. I saw a video recently of a bloke who made a vertical take off drone that has just one motor. His circuit controlled 4 vanes at the rear like a rocket's rear vanes. After many attempts he got it working. The rate of measurement & accuracy of the counter maneuvers was impressive.

Cool stuff..maybe putting the angle reader on an adjustable mount with a screw so you can adjust it to what you like instead of messing with the wire on the servo..just micro adjust the mount tricking it into thinking its starting at a lower or steeper angle to start.

Aww! I thought you will nail this That motor as needle could act as guide That would train people well Or create beeps to have both visual and audio guide

You could have a device that has calibration built in, to set a persons balance point. This could possibly be done by allowing them to put the device into a calibration mode, the code could do something like check for a threshold value that exists for x amount of seconds. This step could be repeated x amount of times to make the program fine tune the balance point. Then this would work no matter what weight, height & arm length the person has. Nice work so far!

"I honestly couldn't do these videos without me" I believe you Tom

You're an eloquent presenter Tom and I enjoy your ideas and your videos. Keep on !!

you should revisit this project, using your speed to gauge the angle ratio, and also smooth out the braking to be more generous. Add in a couple of control knobs for target angle and speed so you can adjust on the field

i swear i was thinking about this the other day. thanks man

You've done great, so I love it

Pretty interesting project, dude! I think you would have to measure more than just the angle... But I don't know. Looking forward to see what you come up with. 😊

Great explanation, good explanation, keep up the good work

A potentiometer to change the angle would've make your life so much easier on this tests, man hahahahaha Great video as always!