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!-- Vernon, Sep 16 2013 Bowling machine carpet belts http://pinspotter.q.../38?cat=27&prod=166As mentioned in the main text. For a room, we want something a lot more plush, of course! [Vernon, Sep 16 2013] Rug Doctor carpet cleaner http://www.rugdoctor.com/If it could be redesigned to work upside-down, then one could be mounted on rails and be automatically moved back and forth, under the slowly moving carpet belt. [Vernon, Sep 16 2013] Instead of one single strip, make the carpet from strips one foot wide which travel in opposite directions. That way you avoid one side of the room being much dirtyer than the other.-- pocmloc, Sep 16 2013 It has been 3 years since I last spent any significant time here, and I still instantly recognized this as a [Vernon] idea.
[+]-- shapu, Sep 16 2013 You know, I can't help thinking that the beginning and end of this idea could have been closer together.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 16 2013 Only if the room had been smaller.-- shapu, Sep 16 2013 random, halfbakery