Fantastic story in today's Press about a West Michigan company that's building automated parking lots...not two legged robotic valets that park your car but a mechanized parking garage where you drive into a slot, kind of like one of those bins in a vending machine, swipe your card and the machine lifts your car up and parks it into a spot. Come back, put your quarter in --- I mean your credit card---and the machine goes and gets your car like the vending machine retrieving your burger. Hopefully it doesn't drop like a coke in the bottom of the machine...ker plopp. I don't really mean to demean the park-o-mat by comparing it to auto-mat food vending, but the ideas seem similar to me -- and actually quite inspired. Cars are just things to be filed away as efficiently as possible until we need them again. The park-o-mat not only saves space but will save sanity too for drivers getting dizzy in those endless parking garages. Praze this innovative company. May they hire lots of people to build lots of Park-o-mats!
Reminds me, not of food vending, but "in-and-out" boat storage. The marina 'parks' your boat in a stacked storage area then brings it out only when you are ready to use it. (ps: being a sailor, I've only observed this activity being done to powerboats)
ReplyDelete