Easiest way to control an inverted pendulum

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I'm trying to create a simple model for a controller of an inverted pendulum.

What I have so far is a model that receives position and velocity from the pendulum, and outputs motor commands. What I want is a physical model that this controller can interact with (using ROS topics to communicate between the two)

I have a feeling this should be relatively simple, but I can't seem to find a good place to start. I think all I need is a rod with mass/intertia with a revolute joint attached to a cart, that can move linearly.

What would you suggest as the best way to set up this environment? I've looked at http://www.openrobots.org/morse/doc/stable/user/actuators/armature.html (armature actuators) in MORSE, but I'm not sure how to build a model that can use them properly.

Any help or suggestions will be much appreciated! :)

I've mostly been using MORSE/Blender, and I'd prefer to keep working with that simulator, but a solution using Gazebo would be okay as well

(I'm using ROS Fuerte on Debian Jessie, with Gazebo 1.7 and MORSE 1.0.1)

EDIT:

Just to follow up in case anyone else runs into a similar problem, here is a list of tutorials that I've found to be helpful:

Accessing and modifying joint state: http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Tutorials/1.3/intermediate/pid_control_joint Revolute joint for the pendulum: http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Tutorials/1.2/control_robot/animate_joint Creating a subscriber for ROS messages: http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Tutorials/1.5/ros_enabled_model_plugin Pendulum control for newer version of Gazebo (doesn't work for me, but might for you): http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Tutorials/1.9/Using_A_URDF_In_Gazebo