Here’s a really intuitive parallel parking system designed by 5 seniors at the University of Toledo.
“Our project is to build a parallel parking that is to attach a device to the rear underbody of a car. The concept is to first park only the nose of the car into a parking spot, then having hydraulics lift the rear end of the car into the air, then slide the rear sideways into the parking spot, and then lowering the rear of the car.”
They’ve shared pictures and comments about the progression of the project on their blog. The prototype took about 6 weeks to put together and it appears to work really well. I like it because it’s a much simpler solution than the fancy autopilot systems that are creeping into luxury cars now. [via] – Link.
14 thoughts on “Nifty Parallel Parking Device”
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I remember seeing something identical to this in an old newsreel. I’m not sure when it was from, but it was probably made in the late 1930s or early 1940s.
They actually showed this type of system in Bugati’s back in the 90s. There are several similar types of systems. Nothing new when it comes to parallel parking.
I used to do this by hand with my old Mini cooper in London (o;
That’s interesting. Why do you suppose we don’t see this in cars nowadays? I’m guessing it’s due to weight/fuel economy.
You could probably make it more practical if it served the dual purpose of being your spare tire. The added benefit is that you could use it to lift the car when changing a flat in most situations. Almost all punctures happen on the rear tires.
I too remember seeing this in an old newsreel. The thing with this type of system is that you can park in places where those new “systems” cannot since you don’t have to have extra room to finish backing in, etc.
This is one of the many reasons I want to study electrical engineering. So simple, so useful. It’s pretty damn cool.
Those new autopilot systems worry me, I just have a mental image of a sensor going bad or out of alignment, and BOOM. You trash the bumpers of two cars at once!
This has been done before (in a non-serious way).
Here’s a link to the video:
Red Green’s Implementation