Japanese roboticists Dr. Masaaki Kumagai and Takaya Ochiai built this impressive self-balancing robot. Called BallIP, or Ball Inverted Pendulum, it balances on a bowling ball, and is able to travel laterally as well as forward and backward, due to its omnidirectional drive train. It apparently uses both gyroscopes and accelerometers to detect its inclination, and works in a similar manner to an inverted pendulum robot. [via boingboing]