This project has no connection with my university. Also, to clarify, the link I provided of the Purdue segway has just been used for reference on some of the various components.

I go to Valparaiso University, and am close to one of the Electrical Engineering professors, who gave me all of these parts and frame left over from a senior design project about 5 years ago when I expressed interest in making a segway or RC lawnmower as a personal summer project. It ended up being quite a find, as it is around $1500 in parts (motors, motor controllers, microcontroller,etc)

I did a little googling during my lunch on the disc brake idea, it looks as if that could be a viable option.