In Loving Memory of Simone Gauthier,
August 26th, 1915 - February 18th, 2008

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Airtrax Omni Directional Wheels

In a simple effort to make more posts to keep people interested in my blog, I have decided to start making some tech posts too.  this post will be one of those.

I have long known what an "OmniWheel" is, having seen them on toys years ago.  An OmniWheel is a wheel and tire assembly designed in such a way as to be able to travel in any direction without stopping or changing the orientation of the wheel.



I was watching a TV show this evening called "Prototype This" in which a team of engineers attemps to build prototypes of far fetched ideas, such as Virtual Reality controlled 12 foot tall "Rock-em Sock-em Robots", and cars that can lift themselves into the ait and drive above other cars in traffic or parallel park above other cars.

It was in the latter episode that I was introduced to the "AirTrax" Omni Directional Wheel. The team goes to AirTrax and is given a demonstration of AirTrax's "SIDEWINDER ATX-3000" lift truck.



The SIDEWINDER ATX-3000 Lift Truck (fork lift) is currently the only Omni-Directional Lift truck commercially available worldwide. Click on the image to read more about the ATX-3000 Lift Truck.

Some other resources:
http://www.airtrax.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_x0RgVzfc

I might also suggest looking up WowWee's "Rovio," the mobile webcam.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This forklift is very exciting and will benefit many workers!

http://sidewinderforklift.blogspot.com/

Blaise.B said...

Thank You very much for your comment Anonymous!!

I see that you have your own blog for the sidewinder! There isn't anything there yet but I look forward to seeing what you do with it!

I hope you include AirTrax's other vehicles as well! It's safe to say that AirTrax has a real chance to change the forklift for good!!!!