Long-time viewers may have noticed that I'm particularly interested in omni-directional treadmills, which are a type of treadmill that can move in any direction. I first tackled building one from LEGO more than a year ago, and while I'm still very happy with how that design turned out, it was very large and complex.
So more recently, I was captivated by a very unique omni-directional treadmill design that relied on tilting rotating discs. I had a crack at building one of these a few months ago (see link below), but the design was only able to move around large objects that could be supported by multiple discs at a time.
However, I was sure I could greatly improve on this design, by using much smaller discs, which would be capable of moving around much smaller objects. So, throughout this video, I show the numerous ideas and design iterations I went through on my journey to create my third (and possibly best) omni-directional treadmill, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Enjoy the video!
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Acknowledgement:
The treadmill design shown in this video has some similarities to the Disney "holotile" treadmill design (see patent below). However, the treadmill design shown in this video has a fundamentally different working principle, as it uses discs that can be tilted at any angle, as opposed to the Disney treadmill which uses discs at a fixed angle whose bases can rotate. This significant difference means that the treadmill design shown in this video does not fall under the Disney patent.
Patent of the Disney "holotile" treadmill:
https://patents.justia.com/patent/10416754
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My original omni-directional treadmill design:
https://youtu.be/vgqYwGIWmpc
My first design for a tilting-disc omni-directional treadmill:
https://youtu.be/Eyr1HfQeObc
Link to the tiny rubber bands used in the video:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0D3PT37C4?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
Song credit:
Highway by Roa https://soundcloud.com/roa_music1031
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://audiolibrary.com.co/roa-music/highway
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/wZup9mUmVxE