The QG-1 Gyroscope

Gyroscopes are incredible devices that seem to defy gravity. By simply spinning the flywheel, the gyroscope can balance upright for several minutes. As the flywheel decelerates, the gyroscope slowly falls down.

The rather curious balancing ability of the gyroscope is a demonstration of the fundamental law of inertia. Everyone is familiar with this law from everyday experience. A physical object at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Likewise, an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Thus, inertia is a resistance to any change in motion of a physical object. When the flywheel is rotated at sufficient speed, the gyroscope will resist any change to its plane of rotation. This resistance is directly proportional to the flywheels mass and speed. The momentum of the flywheel allows the gyroscope to resist the force of gravity pulling the device down.

The math and physics behind the gyroscope can get rather complicated. For a detailed explanation of how gyroscopes work, we recommend this article.

The gyroscope is machined from 4 different metals – brass, stainless steel, aluminum, and bronze. The dimensions of the brass flywheel are 0.800” thick and 2.850” in diameter. The bronze screws have been machined with a 90° cup which acts as a bearing/bushing for the stainless steel axle.

The heart of the gyroscope is its flywheel. The large size of the brass flywheel allows these gyros to balance for an extended amount of time.

We were inspired by Chris from Clickspring and his design for a precision gyroscope, but we couldn’t find any traditional gyroscopes like his for sale. Most gyroscopes on the market are made from cheap materials. So, we decided to machine our own and launch it here. We’ve partnered with a local machine shop and we need the Kickstarter community to help us raise enough capital for an initial production run.

First prototypes of the flywheels.

Pictured above is our first prototype run of the brass flywheels. The only way we will be able to keep these gyroscopes affordable is with your help. We need to have the flywheels machined in bulk in order to drive production costs down. That's why we've launched it here, on Kickstarter.

With an extension rod, the gyroscope won't balance as long, but it sure looks awesome!

If you have any questions about this project, feel free to reach out to us and we'll get back as soon as we can. We hope you will consider backing this project! Thank you so much for your time!

Music: Fredji - Flying High