How does the GyroTwister work?
Imagine
you´re holding a glass of ice cubes in your
palm and you shake the ice around the inside
wall of your glass.
The GyroTwister works without batteries! You
power it up using pure muscle power. Inside the
device, you´ll find a 200 gram rotor - the
heart of the GyroTwister. Once it´s set into
motion, a rotation impulse starts up around the
axis. Bike riders are familiar with this kind
of impulse. If you get on a bike that´s not
moving, you´ll fall over. But the faster you
ride, the more stabile the bike becomes. To
steer, more power has to be used as speeds
increase. The rotor within the GyroTwister is
able to build up stability In exactly the same
way – through the moment of inertia (the
gyrating mass is about 2 cm (1/2 inch) from the
axis) and the rotation speed. The user can now
try to tilt the rotor, while simultaneously
turning the rotation axis, to create a moment
when the rotor beings turning. The gyroscope
reacts to this movement with an opposite motion
in an attempt to straighten upright again. This
power force is known as "precession". The
opposite reaction movement is stronger than you
might first think. The principle of precession
is probably familiar to those who´ve tried to
roll a bicycle or car tire down the street. At
first the tire rolls straight and upright, then
it turns to the left or right and then straight
again, only to beginning turning all over
again. In contrast to a tire being rolled along
the street, the rotor inside the GyroTwister is
guided in a circular motion. The GyroTwister
can´t stand completely upright - instead, the
precession is channeled by the guiding
movement. The only "way out" for the rotor is
to "roll away" from the guiding control, which
increases the rotor speed. In the meantime, the
user has tilted the body another quarter turn
and the rotor continues its precession. This
process continues on. The energy used by the
user is converted into increased rotations for
the rotor. This way it´s possible to speed up
the rotor to 10,000 rotations per minute. The
rotor is surrounded by gyrating movements which
are 75 times higher than the actual weight of
the rotor - that is, up to 15 kg or 33 pounds
more! When the user no longer moves the rotor,
the energy stored in the rotations is used by
the friction.