from the source-of-hilarious-viral-fail-videos dept.
It's all in the ankles when it comes to riding hoverboards:
Engineering researchers have some simple advice for people learning to ride hoverboards: it's all in the ankles.
An experiment using sophisticated cameras and sensors attached to first-time riders revealed that ankle movements, not knee or hip movements, are the key to catching on to the increasingly popular devices.
[...] Hoverboards have a motor and two wheels connected by a platform. Riders steer and balance with their feet, although some models are self-balancing.
While new riders would be wise to concentrate on ankle movement, the study by researchers in Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan also showed the central nervous system somehow seems to just know the best strategy to use.
[...] "The process of learning how to ride a hoverboard is largely subconscious," Arami said. "Interestingly enough, our central nervous system can usually figure it out without much instruction, so take it easy and enjoy the ride."
Researchers theorize ankle movement is primarily used to learn to ride because they're the joints closest to the board, primates generally learn better with their hands and feet, and the central nervous system often tries to minimize muscular effort.
[...] Researchers are ultimately interested in using technology to develop assistive and rehabilitative robotics systems to allow people with impairments to regain movement.
"Hoverboards, as simple as they appear, help us dig into how we control our lower limbs and deepen our understanding of human motor control," Arami said.
Journal Reference:
Mohammad Shushtari, Atsushi Takagi, Judy Lee, et al., Balance strategy in hoverboard control, Sci Rep, 12:4509 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-08291-0
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2022, @07:59PM (6 children)
I wonder if this knowledge would help people learn to walk across the deck of a small, pitching boat. I had no trouble walking on a day-tripping fishing boat that was in chop, but lot of people did. Half the guests went inside sea-sick. I don't get nausea, but I get panic attacks and it's gotten worse when I get older. Now there's a real problem, and I always told them, "no, I'm not afraid. I'm not anxious" because seriously, I'm not afraid of boats or planes. They just give me panic attacks. Now I come to find out that the areas of the brain that process inner-ear signals are adjacent to the anxiety centers. So they're half right. It is anxiety in a sense, but all the couch talks in the world aren't going to fix it. Anyway, I digress. I could learn to ride the damned hoverboard but I don't want to because it might stimulate an area adjacent to the anxiety center and make me feel like I'm going to die RIGHT NOW, even though I know that's not rational.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday August 14 2022, @10:53PM (1 child)
Soooo if someone makes you anxious do you start feeling all wobbly and dizzy?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:52PM
This is difficult to test, since anxiety coming from people is slow and is much more psychologically based unless they're unambiguously threatening you, which is rare. I haven't observed that difficult people make me dizzy (possibly creating a feedback effect where I get more anxious), but it might be possible. So I'm going to have to say "no", with the caveat that it could be happening and yet be too subtle for me to self-observe.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:04PM
You could always try a surfboard trainer [youtu.be]. Open a 3-ring binder (they've got to be good for something) and set it on the desk upright, prop your keyboard on it, tilt your monitor up, and stand on the board all day while messing around on the computer and your phone. Your motor center will probably train itself in the background, and after a week or two your 2D-balance on a rigid flat surface pivoting around a single support point will likely have improved, if not plateaued.
(Score: 3, Informative) by inertnet on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:10PM (2 children)
The trick on a boat is to look at the horizon instead of the boat. That way your inner ears and your eyes register the same movement. People get sick if those don't match, if your eyes see no movement but your inner ears do feel it, that's when you get sick. I got to verify this during a severe storm on a ship. Looking inside the ship made me get nausea, looking outside immediately resolved that. Repeated several times to make sure and it really works. Works in other environments too like cars, or even in space, where most astronauts experience motion sickness for a short period after becoming weightless (alas not from personal experience).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:59PM (1 child)
I've heard this a lot before, but it doesn't seem to help. When I was younger and flew, I preferred the window seats of planes for this very reason. Fuck getting up to use the restroom, I needed that window to latch on to so I could make a bit more sense of things--but it was still the only time my palms ever sweat. I think the plane at cruising altitude is too far away from anything to provide meaningful feedback.
Ironically, I found bumpy turbulence to be somewhat relieving--but not smooth dropping turbulence. Daylight approach was also nice, and on a night flight I took I got to see all those glorious city lights near the airport. It's hard to say how much of that is improved feedback and how much was about knowing that the flight would be over soon. I actually had an OK experience *once* with a zero-visibility night flight.
So all the "don't look down" people who have what I would call true "fear of flying" used to piss me off. HELL NO! I want to look down. It helped; but not enough.
BTW, about 15 years ago it started to affect me while being the passenger of a car. Same kind of issue: Twisty roads good, freeways bad. ie, subtle motion bad, gross movement OK.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @02:25AM
Similar. I absolutely cannot read in a car, plane or train. I will get a headache and nausea within a paragraph, and throw up within a page or so. Looking out the window, I am mostly ok. One thing I've found is that If I can close my eyes it reduces the problem. If your eyes are closed your brain doesn't expect vision to match motion. (Not a good idea if you're doing the driving though.)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Sunday August 14 2022, @09:05PM (2 children)
I can't wait for their advice on nutrition: open mouth before attempting to put food or drink into it.
Or their advice on public transportation: wait where the train stops rather than where it doesn't. And start waiting before the train arrives, not after.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:08PM (1 child)
Well, your first hypothesis could be that the muscles closest to/controlling your center of gravity would be the primary ones involved, which isn't too crazy a place to start.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 15 2022, @07:09PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2022, @09:18PM (1 child)
No hoverboards, no flying cars, just pain.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday August 14 2022, @10:51PM
Indeed. Allowing these things to be called hoverboards is like allowing LED backlit monitors to be called LED monitors. Actually it's worse, because those do have LEDs in them (despite being LCD not OLED screens) but these boards can't really hover in space. It's annoying.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:42PM (1 child)
Knees provide only one dimension input while hips give too large an input. Ankles are what's left to work with.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday August 15 2022, @03:04AM
You'd think so, but if you consider trying to additionally draw with your elbow or shoulder, you might be able to train your proprioception (if that's what's being used here) to do so rather than having to do it all with your wrist, and getting carpal tunnel like a lot of artists do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @01:35PM
For example when you see experts doing balancing tricks they often don't have to move stuff much - because they react the correct way almost immediately. But if you're learning and you stick to doing the minimal that they do you're going to fail far more and not learn as fast.
Similarly when you're learning to balance on a hoverboard/skateboard etc you probably use your elbow guards, knee pads and helmet a lot more... Whereas once you're an expert you might rarely use them at all.
That said it is still good to know the principles. So yes you should know that tilting the hoverboard is how you make it move forwards and backwards. And tilting it with your ankles is the most efficient way of doing it. It's just that if you don't do it in time you may need to use the rest of your body to try to not fall down...
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday August 17 2022, @01:13PM
I'm late to the party, the article is already off the front page, but let me still record my Nerd x Otaku considerations for the archive:
I missed the article because I was at a Cosplay convention right when it ran. In an idle moment there, I thought that a semi-convincing display of the "Striker Units" shown in "Strike Witches" might be done atop a hoverboard. Such a coincidence. This article gives the hint that a direct "bolt the boots to the board" approach would not work. Instead, you'd probably want a fixed center link from the board to the boot sole ("propeller hub" in this case) and then an outside link to a swiveling board inside the boot.