Inventor James Bruton is at it again, creating things that make you go “how does that even work?” His latest is a two wheeled e-bike with omni directional wheels. The front wheel is mostly like a normal bike wheel and the rear omni wheel is flipped 90 degrees. This thing moves in ways that will leave you dizzy.
The frame alone is cool, it looks like a mini chopper than a normal bike. The front forks are stretched out at a bold rake angle, it’s low and long like a custom motorcycle shop. Bruton used aluminum extrusions (his go to for strength, light weight and flexibility) and added aluminum plates to lock the extrusions together to make the frame strong enough to handle the antics of the omni wheels. 3D printed plastic parts were added to fit the bike’s uniqueness.
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The real magic happens with the omni wheels. Unlike regular wheels that only go one way, these have smaller rollers that let the bike slide sideways or diagonally. The rear wheel mounted sideways to the frame is the star of the show. It doesn’t roll forward like a normal bike wheel, it glides side to side powered by a custom hub and belt system Bruton made. This isn’t your typical omni wheel with free spinning rollers, Bruton’s design uses powered rollers tied to a central hub with belts. When the belts spin the wheel acts normal, but those rollers let it slide laterally like it’s on ice.
The front wheel is more like a standard omni wheel with free spinning rollers, it lets the bike pivot and twist in ways that defy traditional cycling. Steering feels like less leaning into a turn and more like wrangling a machine that’s ready to breakdance in any direction. Together the semi normal front wheel and sideways rear wheel make this thing part bike part hoverboard, a total re think of getting from A to B.
Powering this beast are ODrive M8325s motors run by ODrive S1 controllers with built in encoders for precise control. These aren’t your average e-bike motors, they’re high performance motors built for serious torque to tame the omni wheel chaos. The brain of it all? A Teensy 4.0 board with a SparkFun BNO086 IMU to track the bike’s tilt. This inertial measurement unit feeds the balance data to the system to keep things stable. No standard throttle, Bruton added two big joysticks to the handlebars for motor control. For fun he added an LED strip to the electronics box that lights up like a spirit level, showing the bike’s tilt in real time with a colorful glow.
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