First, some background info:
One of the designs for machinery that handles bowling
pins
includes something called a "carpet belt". The machine
has two big rollers (each is a cylinder with a length about
equal to the width of the bowling lane), and the carpet
belt
is as wide as those rollers
are long, and is wrapped
around
them. (A side view of the carpet belt might resemble
the
side view of a war-tank tread, except that there are only
the two big rollers at each end, and not all those
intermediary rollers.)
The way the rollers are mounted, heavy springs push
them
away from each other, which puts the carpet belt under
tension. There is a limit to how much weight can be
sustained by that tension, of course, so, underneath the
central part of carpet belt, in-between the rollers, is a
big
weight-support plate. Here is a crude ASCII side-view
sketch:
. . ________
(O ________ O)
The two dots should be ignored. The two horizontal lines
and the parentheses represent the carpet belt. The
weight-support plate is not shown; it is located in-
between
the rollers, and also in-between the horizontal lines. It
is
attached to the side-walls (one of which is the place
from
which you would be seeing this side-view).
The whole carpet belt moves around the rollers at a
modest rate, so that any bowling pins that land on it are
carried to the back of the machine, where other
components can deal with the overall process of
preparing
to set a fresh batch of them on the bowling lane, for the
next bowler.
OK, NOW FOR THE ROOM VERSION.
Pick the room, then pick a pair of opposite walls. Cut
the
floor along the whole length of those walls so that a big
long roller can be installed in each slot. The remaining
floor is the equivalent of the weight-support plate
described above. The floor is treated to become as low-
friction as possible. The carpet, including all appropriate
padding, is wrapped around the two big rollers. Some
extra machinery is added, along with an electric motor,
to
SLOOOOWLY move this Room Carpet-Belt.
All furniture in the room is mounted on wheels and
attached to the walls, so it stays in place even while the
carpet moves beneath them.
And now, the whole purpose of this HalfBaked Idea:
Underneath the room we install automatic carpet-
cleaning
equipment (perhaps like an upside-down "Rug Doctor").
No
matter how dirty this carpet-belt gets while the room is
occupied, it begins getting cleaned as it gets moved
under
the room. Since the carpet moves very slowly, reflecting
the typical amount of time needed between Ordinary
rug-
cleanings, there is plenty of time for it to become fully
dry,
before fresh clean carpet emerges back into the room.
Also, because the carpet moves very slowly, it should be
very easy to get stuff, like teenagers' clothing on the
floor,
away from the one wall, before it gets carried
underneath
the room. POSSIBLY, the threat of such loss will
encourage
said teenagers to keep their stuff off the floor? That
remains to be seen, of course!