In which I attempt to motorize my feet

Oops, I accidentally an entire blog.

I'm starting this blog primarily to act as a chronicle of what will almost certainly be my catastrophic failure in building something useful.

Wait, I'll back up a bit.

I'm Alex, currently a Computer Science undergrad. I was programming for a few years before I was even that, though. Since Perl was my first programming language, I've internalized some parts of the Perl culture pretty thoroughly. The part that seems to have stuck the most? The Three Virtues of the Perl Programmer. These are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris.

I'm sorry, I must have something crazy in my ear.

 Yeah, you heard that right. The definitions are slightly different than you might expect, though.

• Laziness: Why should I have to do something when the computer can do it for me? 
• Impatience: Why should I have to wait for the computer when a more efficient program will finish faster? 
• Hubris: I'm smart enough to make the computer do this right, so that I won't have to do it myself. 

It's worth noting that the only one of these virtues that doesn't often end up being brutally subverted is hubris. (Wait, then what do you call failing spectacularly?) This 'laziness' is the type that usually results in spending several weeks writing a program to accomplish a task that takes ten minutes, and the 'impatience' here tends to involve spending similar amounts of time in order to manage a 1-percent speed gain on a program that runs for ten minutes a day. Those with OCD are right at home here. Like me.

The problem is when I start applying these to the real world.

Specifically, my laziness means that the walking I have to do on a daily basis ticks me off because it requires effort. My impatience means that it ticks me off because it's slow. And my hubris means I think I can fix those problems.

This can't end well.

 So I decided to make a pair of powered skates. This has been tumbling around in my brain for a while, but recently a few things happened to make the idea coalesce.

To wit:

1. I learned of the existence of Skikes, whose longer wheelbase and actual tires should make the result less likely to kill me (yeah, right).
2. I saw the Chibikart, whose hub motors made me realize that there really was space to put a motor on there.
3. Similarly, this Instructable from the same guy. 
4. In looking at the blog of the guy who made Chibikart, I discovered the RazErblades ( A.K.A. the devices formerly known as Deathblades), which proved that the entire concept could actually work. 

There's only one problem.

I'm a Computer Science student with no mechanical engineering knowledge who only took the Electromagnetics physics course this last quarter.

Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

Jake: Hit it.

Yeah, it's kind of like that.

Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for you, since you will be able to read this and Learn From My Fail), when measured against a properly-calibrated reference cat (don't even ask what a pain in the ass that was to find), I registered as "Entirely too damn curious for my own good. Or the good of bystanders. Or really anyone potentially in the blast radius of anything I try to build."

So the project seems to come out to the following:

A pair of powered skates, with an unusually long wheelbase and unusualy large wheels which use actual tires (two per skate), propelled by hub motors in each wheel, controlled wirelessly.

Which, once finished, I intend to use every day.

Oh, did I mention I live in the vicinity of Seattle, Washington?

Well, shit.

 Okay, so waterproofing needs to be there too.

... And I hate carrying things around, so I want these to be low-profile and low-weight.

So I'll make them designed to strap onto my combat boots.

These ones.

 Possibly with a solid column in the back, but if so it'll be able to fold down lengthwise for transport.

Did I mention that there's a nonzero likelihood that I'm entirely insane?

So here's a quick sketch I did in Inkscape of roughly how I intend these to look:

Clearly far too cool not to build.

 I'll leave you with a quote from Firefly, since this project is going to be very interesting.

Mal: Define "interesting."

Wash: Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die.

Mal: This is the captain. We're having a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then... explode.

Apologies to cracked.com, for my shameless use of their method of embedding pictures to make a point.