One thing going slightly viral lately is footage of Disney’s “HoloTile” infinite floor, an experimental sort of 360° treadmill developed by [Lanny Smoot]. But how exactly does it …
It doesn’t grind anything basically the same way a treadmill doesn’t sand anything. You’re not forcing anything to stay put on the surface, you’re maneuvering on the surface while the surface is counter-moving you.
MKBHD’s video shows it moving him around on a chair, spinning the chair, etc etc. In the closeup shots, it looks like there’s debris on the surface of the cone thingies:
The debris isn’t uniform and is quite obviously not part of the roller material; I just kind of assumed that it was from stuff they’d been testing on it, though I suppose it could be generic workshop crud that fell on the rollers too 🤷
There’s probably very minimal sliding against that surface. From the point of view of each point of contact, it’s mostly static friction, with very little dynamic friction/slippage.
It doesn’t grind anything basically the same way a treadmill doesn’t sand anything. You’re not forcing anything to stay put on the surface, you’re maneuvering on the surface while the surface is counter-moving you.
MKBHD’s video shows it moving him around on a chair, spinning the chair, etc etc. In the closeup shots, it looks like there’s debris on the surface of the cone thingies:
The debris isn’t uniform and is quite obviously not part of the roller material; I just kind of assumed that it was from stuff they’d been testing on it, though I suppose it could be generic workshop crud that fell on the rollers too 🤷
There’s probably very minimal sliding against that surface. From the point of view of each point of contact, it’s mostly static friction, with very little dynamic friction/slippage.