At the Volkswagen factory there are two towers – AutoTürme – filled with gigantic robots lifting cars into parking spaces. It’s by far the most efficient way of putting a huge number of cars in a small footprint. Slot cars exist, so how about a completely overwrought yet entirely awesome robotic parking garage for 1:32 scale cars? (.es, Google translatrix)
The project is built around several ‘racks’ to hold cars arranged around a central elevator. An Arduino takes care of moving all the motors and reading all the sensors, with the basic idea behind the project being the ability to select a car and have it appear in the pit of the track a few moments later.
Although this is just one small part of what is already a very impressive slot car track, it is however the most electronic. Other unique additions include a very unique cantilever/suspension bridge and the usual modeling techniques of creating a landscape with little more than cardboard and glue.
The best way to get a sense of how cool the parking garage is through the video. You can check that out below.
Thanks [Oscar] for sending this one in.
cool system I’m wondering if you could get a quicker place to place time by having the software move both rotation and up/down simultaneously or if that would cause cars to fall off.
I tried to watch the video but I could only take 12 seconds of that *music*.
Don’t complain about the music, all I get is a black screen and the comment:”Invalid parameters”!!!
Looks a bit like the plate handling mechanism inside a cytomat incubator. Well done!
now that is awesome, great work !
Needs an interrupt in the part where the arm is descending if it’s not carrying a car. Way too much time wasted waiting for the arm to go all the way to the bottom and then all the way up again.
It seems like a little bit too much work. Don’t get me wrong, I love the execution and opportunities for improivement, but why carry the 200g piece of track with the 100g car? Drive on/drive off under CPU control, or simply fork the car from track to stack…
Also stacking density leaves a ‘bit of room’ for improvement,
Does the CPU sense & position the car on the movable track segment – or the user?
Nice work – a product in 12 months time!
Looks like the user has to goose the car into place. You can see him miss once and have to take another lap around.
1/24th the size, 3/8th the fun.
Why even Slot car, 1/32 – 1/24 Rc brushless 2.4ghz controllers, Got a 1/24 scale it’s absurdly fast with a lipo.