Four and a half years ago, George Burger was watching his son play Call of Duty, and thought that it’d be great if he would be able to run around instead of just sitting while playing video games. When he discovered that there weren’t any omnidirectional treadmills on the market, then he decided to build one himself.

This resulted in the InfinAdeck, which was his second prototype of the omnidirectional treadmill and it was a surprise hit at SVVRCon. George describes it as being like a tank tread with each tread being it’s own Y-direction treadmill running 90-degrees perpendicular to the main, X-direction treadmill.

George talks about the process of designing and building this second prototype, and what’s next in terms of designing an automatic control mechanism. He had shown earlier prototypes on the Meant to be Seen 3D forums, and had even been in contact with Palmer Luckey about his progress.

Finally, he talks about how InfinAdeck compares to the Virtuix Omni as well as his next steps in designing the next iteration.

Reddit discussion here.

TOPICS

0:00 – Intro & the InfinAdeck omnidirectional project started 4.5 years ago. Inspired by watching son play Call of Duty. Worked on it for a year, and made an original prototype. Designed 2nd prototype and started building it in October 2013. It’s a prototype, and it’s over designed and too big. But now know what it takes to build the next iteration

1:42 – Describe what’s happening with the two conveyor belts. Difficult to describe, but it’s like a tank treadmill with 90-degree treadmills

2:26 – Able to turn while walking and how does the control mechanism work. Two motors X and the transverse Y motor. Two omniwheels and that it’s geared different. Uses noisy parts, and will be different. Motors are controlled by a motor controller, and the control mechanism isn’t finished yet.

4:08 – There’s manual controls that he’s using at the moment.

4:47 – Has anyone fallen down? No. No one has ever fallen down.

5:15 – What did you learn from this prototype then? Too big. Too heavy. Too overdeisgned. Will design the next version with a computer.

6:04 – At what point did you realize that this would be great for virtual reality? Envisioned that it’d be like a CAVE, but with televisions. Got onto Meant to be Seen, and showed prototype, but people weren’t interested. Decided to lay low. Couldn’t get engineering help from others, and decided to be quiet and develop it.

7:39 – What was Palmer Luckey’s reaction to it? He loved it. Had control suggestions, and wants to buy one. Doc_Ok wants to help with the control mechanism.

8:24 – Has anyone used VR with it yet? Not yet. Need to have the control mechanism in place.

8:58 – Who is the target demographic for this? Everyone. It was designed for mass production. Perhaps military, medical police officers and even gamers. Need to know how big and how fast should it go. Never as portable as the Virtuix Omni, but they’re not competing against them. At opposite ends of the spectrum.

10:07 – Sounds like this would be great for a higher tier where you have a dedicated space for VR. Don’t need a full room, just enough space for the InfinAdeck.

11:16 – What are the dimensions. 7′ x 7′, but with a 60-inch space in the middle. Need to keep them in the center.

12:01 – What’s the speed limit? Could make it go 10 mph in next iteration. This one was meant for jogging at around 3.5 mph. Depends on the technology for how fast it’ll go. The purpose of this prototype was to figure out what would be needed for the next iteration. Purpose of it was over before SVVRCon, and getting to show it was a bonus.

Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio