Ever wonder what happens when someone decides traditional wheels are too mainstream? James Bruton, a British inventor with 1.39 million YouTube subscribers, just answered that question by building an omnidirectional electric bike that balances on a single red plastic ball. Your daily commute suddenly looks boring by comparison.
Engineering Madness Meets Mathematical Precision
Three custom omni-wheels with precise roller systems create the impossible.
The system sounds like something from a fever dream. Bruton mounted three vertical omni-wheels around a large sphere, each packed with two rows of 18 passive rollers featuring TPU tires on aluminum hubs and individual bearings. These wheels, powered by brushless motors delivering up to 2kW each via belt drive, use trigonometry to coordinate movement.
When you want to roll forward, the front-facing wheel spins at full speed while the rear wheels run at half speed. A PID controller reads data from an IMU sensor to maintain balance across both roll and pitch planes, essentially turning you into a human gyroscope.
Reality Bites Back Hard
Static electricity and steering challenges reveal why this remains experimental.
Here’s where physics gets petty. Static electricity generated between the ball and rollers randomly shuts down the entire system—imagine explaining that roadside breakdown to AAA. Current steering happens via a foam fin that catches airflow, which works about as well as you’d expect from something that sounds like a middle school science project.
Unlike Bruton’s previous two-ball design that could turn via differential rotation, the single ball configuration lacks that luxury. Six LiPo battery packs provide 50V of power through an aluminum extrusion frame dotted with 3D-printed components.
Open Source Innovation Meets Viral Engineering
Maker community benefits as Bruton shares all design files freely.
Bruton’s approach reflects the best of maker culture—he publishes all CAD files and code on YouTube, turning personal experiments into community resources. His progression from three-ball to two-ball to this single-ball iteration shows iterative engineering in real time, complete with failures and breakthroughs.
The next video promises steering solutions, possibly involving ball lean control similar to electric unicycles. While practical transportation remains distant, the project demonstrates how accessible tools like 3D printing and open-source electronics enable increasingly sophisticated robotics. Your garage workshop might not produce the next Tesla, but it could birth something far more interesting.
