New Hampshire Inventor Dean Kamen Visits Washington
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14–Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway vehicle, met with several dozen Congressmen this week, including Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., while promoting his battery-powered “human transporter” and seeking regulations that would allow it to be used as a personal transportation vehicle.
A reception yesterday at the Commerce Department honored Kamen for his receipt of the 2000 National Medal of Technology, the highest award granted by the United States to inventors. He was also recognized for his numerous inventions and as the founder of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a nationwide high school student organization that has held annual robotics competitions for a decade.
Kamen met Wednesday evening with Bass, giving the Congressman his second ride on the scooter-like Segway.
“This trip is about introducing the technology,” said Brian Toohey, vice president of international and regulatory affairs for Segway, the company Kamen created to produce the one-person carrier. “Bass and [New Hampshire Senator Judd] Gregg have classified the Segway appropriately, not as a motor vehicle but as a product for pedestrians.”
Since Monday, Kamen has met with the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Secretary of Commerce, and other Members of the House and Senate.
Bass, who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, plans this year to reintroduce legislation to ensure that the Segway would be classified as a consumer product, like a bicycle, and not as a motor vehicle.
“The Segway has the potential to revolutionize the way we get around major cities and help boost the New Hampshire economy,” Bass said in a statement yesterday. He plans to introduce legislation to allow tax credits for Segway buyers as a way to reduce traffic congestion and encourage environmentally friendly vehicles.
The New Hampshire House of Representatives is expected to decide soon on whether to regulate the Segway scooter as an “electric personal assistive mobility device,” which would allow it onto sidewalks and public ways. Last month, the State Senate voted unanimously to regulate the vehicle for pedestrian use.
The Commerce Department room was filled past capacity yesterday as 125 high school students asked Kamen about his inventions and his ideas on education, science, and public service.
“The one place where humans are at the pinnacle is inventing,” Kamen said.
Kamen was outspoken on his views that children should spend less time playing sports and more time learning.
“Why do kids waste all their time chasing the great American lie?” Kamen asked, referring to the dreams of many children of playing professional sports, while winning the lottery would be statistically likelier. “We’ve made [sports] bigger than life in this country.”
“Kids develop their world out of watching televisioná. We’re cheating them out of doing something useful,” he said.
The FIRST chapter from Herndon High School in Virginia demonstrated its most recent remote-controlled robot, complete with spinning gears, whirring chains and a blinking blue light.
“Each of the students here that are not on a FIRST team,” Kamen said, “I will ask you, try it once. It may seem to you that science, math and engineering is dull, a drag, boring; that’s not so. That’s an unfair presentation that our culture has delivered to you.”
The FIRST students praised the program for providing them an outlet for creative energy. One student changed his mind from studying law to becoming an engineer after joining the group, while another made up his mind to work for NASA.
“Robotics is my life,” said Jessica Westbrook, a senior at Herndon High School.
Other inventions on display yesterday included a dialysis machine, an electrical generator that fits into a military backpack and a wheelchair that uses the same gyroscopic technology as the Segway.
Kamen estimates that as soon as next year the Segway will be available to the public for $3,000 each.
One student asked how it works.
“It literally does what each of you learned how to do when you were two years oldáto learn how to maintain your balance,” Kamen said.
The 60-pound Segway, with its 10 computers, senses the passenger’s subtle shift of balance and responds by moving forward or backward.
Kamen said the Segway is ready for the market, but regulations on how to classify the vehicle will determine its promise.
“The technology is done. The question now is whether people will use it in some useful way or if it will be used like jet skis, for a recreational tool,” Kamen said.
In the meantime, he is willing to gather converts to his invention wherever he can. The more public support he receives for the Segway, Kamen believes, the sooner it can be used by postal workers, congressional aides and everyday citizens.
“If tomorrow morning the Postmaster, the Department of Defense or Housing and Urban Development wanted to meet with me, I’d be here in a heartbeat,” Kamen said.
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire
