This is the ideal solution if your garden doesn't have space for a full-size maze. It consists of three sections of passageway and a very fast-moving robot crane. You enter a passageway, walk to the corner and turn the corner. As you approach the next corner, the robot crane is already disconnecting the first section of passageway, recentering the whole structure in the middle of the maze area and getting ready to attach this piece of passageway plus a corner connector to the other end.

This could, effectively, appear to be an infinitely big maze so there would probably have to be some sort of time limit on usage to prevent starvation and fatigue and death.

More complex corner pieces and junction pieces are available as an upgrade.
-- hippo, Nov 09 2021

Unamazing https://sodabred.tu...e-of-work-by-xenzag
[xenzag, Nov 09 2021]

5 stars. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 09 2021]

Prior art https://www.imdb.co.../?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3
Not a robot crane, but moving units. [neutrinos_shadow, Nov 09 2021]

Wumpus https://en.m.wikipe...iki/Hunt_the_Wumpus
Since you already have cranes in place, emulating the superbats would be possible. The bottomless pits and bendy arrows might present more challenges. [pertinax, Nov 09 2021]

This is a most idea.

I think that the robot crane is unnecessarrily complexicated. I think that the options can be preprogrammed in such a way as to only require a certain configuration of additional corridor units. There could be hinged sections like a jacobs ladder which swing into place according to the predefined generic algorithms;
-- pocmloc, Nov 09 2021


The infinite pool approach. Interesting. Alternatively you could pull this off with a VR headset or Google Glass as long as the participant obeyed the directional rules.

Bonus points if it includes random noise samplings from Wolfenstein 3D.
-- RayfordSteele, Nov 09 2021


When I get five minutes, I'll post a pic a piece of work I did some time ago entitled Unamazing.
-- xenzag, Nov 09 2021


Presumably there is a multi-directional travelator under your feet? Otherwise, space constraints will still mean your options are either (a) persistently circular maze or (b) running into the hedge / fence / bins problem.
-- calum, Nov 09 2021


Clever.

I'm thinking you'd need calum's idea to make this work. A floor made up of free rolling little balls or something so you could walk in place, change direction etc all in a confined space while still taking full stride steps.

Then have the maze just be made of pop up sections. Then you're talking.
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 09 2021


I proposed using the robot crane to recentre the whole maze but actually as [calum] and [Dr R. Emulac III] suggest, a floor of rollers or something might make this easier. I also really like the 'Jacob's Ladder'-style folding proposed by [pocmloc] - a very elegant solution
-- hippo, Nov 09 2021


Aha, a reading comprehension fail. Doubly embarrassing as I read through the idea the idea thrice, as it seemed extraordinarily unlikely that hippo had committed a blunder such as the one I pointed out. Indeed, I wondered on the third erroneous read through, if this "blunder" was part of the joke, and by pointing out the joke like a dullard, I was instead making myself the joke, falling into a trap like a dolt - no such luck, alas, it is simply that I cannot fucking read.
-- calum, Nov 09 2021


^ don’t worry[calum] I have that problem , too. I read over and over but sometimes the way the words go into the brain, it just does not calculate.

I Wonder what would happen if a person ran faster than the crane moved along?
-- xandram, Nov 09 2021


You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. No, really, very alike indeed, because they are the same passages.

I wonder whether a wumpus could be hunted within this garden.
-- pertinax, Nov 09 2021


//You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike// - with a childhood spent playing text-based adventure computer games, that phrase was in my mind too...
-- hippo, Nov 09 2021


This idea reminds me of a game I used to play with my kids when they were young called The Amazing Labyrinth.
The maze itself remains the same size but constantly changes each turn as the next player pushes in a new section of maze which slides the entire row causing the end piece to exit. That piece is then fed into the maze by the next player, and so on.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 09 2021


//alas, it is simply that I cannot fucking read.//

Yea, me neither, don't sweat it. I'll read something 3 times and say "I have no idea what I just read."

I love one poster here that I haven't seen in a while that I have yet to understand a single idea from. Don't want to name names, but they're a fixture here, have been for years.

Hope they're okay.

Regulars know who I'm talking about. Twenty or thirty paragraphs, many people get what the idea is but I never do. Again, seems like a very nice and creative person they're just on a higher plane than me.
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 09 2021


George has been naughty put him in the maze. Program the path to have an exit only after 1/2 an hour, but tell him if he finds the exit punishment is over.
-- wjt, Nov 13 2021



random, halfbakery