#6 Rotomotion IMU on a self-balancing robot?

[Sonic_Reducer]

hi everybody,

i'm (trying) to build a self-balancing robot to get
kids into engineering. I'm a first year engineering
student with very little programming experience trying
to learn more. My grand plan is to bring this to
schools for carreer nights and whatnot, showing them
what you can do with some technical knowhow.

Trevor Blackwell (www.tlb.org) made a segway-esque
scooter using a rotomotion IMU and a RoboteQ motor
controller. The RoboteQ motor controller is a ver
expensive unit (RoboteQ AX2550 - $495 on
www.robotcombat.com), especially for a college student.
I want to use a pair of OSMC's with only two or three
FET's on each leg of the H-bridge to save money. I'm
sure most of you know what the OSMC is, but it is a
full H-Bridge that uses a HIP4081A to take a PWM input
and turn it into a smooth output to control the IRF1405
MOSFETs.

The problems i've run into (aside from my limited
knowlege) is the tokin CG-16D has been discontinued,
and there are much more advanced gyroscopes out there.
I have come across the Sparkfun 5DOF IMU
(http://tinyurl.com/qfj5d) that has already taken care
of all the nasty fine-pitch soldering and put it on a
breakout board less than an inch square with a 9-pin
SIP header. could i just modify the schematic of the
Rev2.4 board to include this instead of the ADXL202 and
CG-16?

if anyone would like to lend a hand here to help
inspire kids to go into engineering careers I'd greatly
appreciate it. Please let me know if you're interested.

my email address is sonicrdcr@yahoo.com or we could IM
if you'd prefer that, email me with your handle.