Omni-Sphere VR Treadmill Concept

This is a concept for a VR treadmill I put together. It consists of spheres that can be actively driven in one direction and roll passively in the other.
Project Page:
hackaday.io/project/177222-a-...
Discord:
/ discord
Twitter:
/ finallyfunct
GitHub:
github.com/finallyfunctional/
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[@RADRaze2KX]

I'm really glad someone on the planet was bold enough to try this. I had this idea in my head for a while but don't have the engineering knowledge needed to make it. I thought this would be the way... a "flat" ground, natural walking / running gate, but as you demonstrated, you'd need a LOT of proportionately smaller spheres to reduce the gap and smooth out the surface. This is kinda like how DLP uses hundreds of thousands of tiny mirrors. It looks like one mirror until you look at it under a microscope and see it's so small... I hope you revisit this particular design some day, shrinking down the spacing to see if it works. Your other projects do look promising, but this is my favorite concept. Cheers

[@giin97]

Hmmm... Why not just a surface of ball bearings? Stupid slippery sure, but you're in a harness holding you up.

[@rmbet]

Super interesting concept! Can’t wait to your upcoming design. You should do a step by step video assembling the shoe that’d be way helpful!

[@finallyfunctional]

I have a guide for assembling my current version here - hackaday.io/project/177221/instructions

[@toomanymats9755]

Love the idea. Similar to something I had a while back, glad to see it tested. I couldn't work out a way to do it cheaply with all the small balls needed, but was thinking you could produce a similar concept by moving the balls onto the bottom of the shoe surface instead of the ground surface. Though this results it something similar to your first concept

[@skjonas]

Sounds like a high-quality Discord server.

[@Dindonmasker]

Pretty cool test! Was worth a shot for sure!

[@jacobpooler6299]

I thought I recognized this guy, then i saw the hole in the ceiling and was like "nooo, it cant be the same guy" but it is! pushing the boundaries of VR locomotion to this day!

[@Elemblue2]

The bumpiness is a plus. It makes it so it feels like your walking on real ground instead of cement.

[@asherphillips5083]

One thing i noticed with the design If x = the red balls rotating the rod If z = the black balls rotating the rod You could use the red balls as more of gears to rotate the z axis and provide friction Therefore, reducing material use and improving the probability of z axis movement via y axis activation and vise versa. Of course, I could be wrong, so please do correct me if I am missing or am wrong about the concept.

[@Shadow__X]

It might be advantageous to use Omni wheels instead of domes since Omni wheels have a constant effective radius and thus transfer rotation more smoothly

[@rogueagency7714]

Sounds like a pool hall. Any of your locomotive designs for a one big sphere you can get inside and rest on two x, y rollers?

[@nexusimmortal3669]

lol might be a dumb idea but use magnets for the pivoting function if the axis were on the same Z plane using magnets of the same north or south polarity with the center magnet being a sphere and the magnets connecting the point could either be curved or flat not totally sure myself as long as the x and y axis dont interfere with each other you can make the spheres uniform assuming its properly supports human body weight...

[@huzrokhayzur2197]

it could be intresting to print that in half the real size and combine 4 of them to get the same surface but with a higher density of spheres. Great job man

[@finallyfunctional]

I would like to miniaturize the spheres further, but I'm limited because I can't make the bearings and rods that support the spheres smaller.

[@content1]

Good to see that you keep trying new approaches. Which software do you use to do the modeling? The one appears on the video.

[@finallyfunctional]

Designspark Mechanical

[@content1]

@@finallyfunctional Thank you, I just had a look. I never heard of it. Looks interesting and its FREE.

[@3DFanWorld]

2024, disney show something similar, probably this is how it works, please patent this

[@osmanturk769]

Would not a shoe with super thick yet comfy soles eliminate the bumpiness problem?

[@88Spint]

Can't it be improved by simply shrinking the spheres? possibly adding in a little softer or flexible material for the spheres?

[@usonlyus7148]

If it would be up for consumer how much would be the price be? And how durable is this product?

[@IHPI]

do you plan on going back to the active vr shoes you were making?

[@finallyfunctional]

If I dont make something better first, yeah probably, but it will be a new active VR shoe design.

[@IHPI]

Sounds great, I did like the small footprint of the old ones, the walking seemed to be more realistic too since you wouldn't need to pull yourself from a rig

[@boymem]

T'he roller's in to t'he semirguit Big bag

[@pn4960]

Hello, Very interesting channel, so I subscribed ^^. I had the same kind of idea only using something similar to old computer mice with a ball and a led reader. Probably more complicated though. It's the mouvement of the balls that would translate into the mouvement of the character in VR so you'd need to compute and aggregate the information coming from the mouvement of the balls.

[@dmitriykonopinskiy3793]

You need to use caprolon(polyamide-6) for balls. it is very slippery and quite hard and durable

[@finallyfunctional]

I don't think slipperiness or the balls not being hard enough were causing the issues.

[@SSJ3Tim]

I think you'd rather want something more rubbery, like a layer of silicone, in order to both increase grip and dampen the sound a bit.

[@jhggrry3832]

A legenda di JPN-STARR.Uno snowquen hè u mo idolu. Hè a persona chì aspiru à essen, hè a mo luce di ghjornu