Deo Roll On ODT

[Namielus]

I thought about buying one of those cheap water walking balls, pump it up and epoxy fibre glass sheets on it to make it rigid without air.



http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Fun-Water-W ... 948wt_1188

Then make a simple dome with ball roller bearings such as this



I have an old render I did for my idea here



It would cost around 300 dollars to make with all materials, but it would not be transparent so Kinect would not work with it, and it requires a lot of space.

[JohnnyGrant]

Yes will try to experiment with that soon Thanks

[JohnnyGrant]

yeah that is a great idea too!

[PalmerTech]

Making a sphere like that gets you something like the VirtuSphere, only heavier and with even more severe inertial problems.

[Namielus]

I didn't think about inertia, thanks for the input.

[cybereality]

Not sure if this idea would work, but I like this kind of thinking.

[Namielus]

I can only speak for myself but, honestly just playing with all these ideas, even if it results in nothing is half the fun.
And I also enjoy watching others, that had my ideas before me, in a much more elaborate and clever way.
I'm glad I discovered this forum, and all the crazy, rinkydink ideas as well as very solid ones.

[PalmerTech]

I didn't think about inertia, thanks for the input.

You might be able to overcome it by motorizing the platform, at least partially. The easiest way I can think to do it would be to have an optical mouse looking at the bottom of the sphere, and whenever it detects a slight amount of motion in a particular direction, it would engage motorized wheels along that axis of motion to help get it moving.

You would want the motorized wheels to have limited torque, though, so that the user would be able to change directions/slow down/stop. Perhaps use plastic wheels on the motors that would slip on the surface if enough opposing forced was put on them?

[FingerFlinger]

I had a thought about an active VirtuSphere because you could solve the inertia problem, but I think the actual tracking is hard... Also, it would be possible to model rolling terrain by varying the user's position inside the sphere.

EDIT: What Palmer said.

[Namielus]

I was also concerned that even if those balls are inflated with a high pressure, they wouldn't keep round enough while applying fibre glass. I have worked a little with carbon fibre as well, but the cost of that would be too high for me compared to the risk of failure.

My first idea with those single wall balls, was a little different but the time you spend inside them is limited to 30mins.
Ive built an air hockey table before, I could make a dome with the same types of holes in it,
vacuum mold some acrylic sheets and have the ball sitting in that pit with air flowing around it with minimum friction(?). Problem is since it is not rigid , I do not know if it will work when your foot is in contact with the surface. At some point we would have our whole body weight shifted to a small area of our food, and that would maybe be too heavy for the air hockey concept
and soft walls.

But if it would work, the inflated ball weighs almost nothing and is also easy to store away.
Edit;

I think the lightest ball I've seen in those sizes weighs 12kg