Elevators are used a lot especially in cities where tall buildings are prevalent. Many people use elevators at a time, and even more through the course of a day. Elevators are used for transporting a handful of people up and down buildings or are used to transport heavy items or items that would be hard to lug up and down the stairs.
The main interface that an elevator has which people can interact with are the buttons. Another interface an elevator has are the panels that reveal the floor number.
A virus can spread easily through elevator use (also depending on the material of buttons – the most commonly touched surface in elevators; metal vs plastic) because many people touch the elevator buttons. Though a small surface area, people usually use their pointer finger which touches most of everything else they use/eat which could spread a virus if people forget to wash their hands. Another way a virus can spread is because an elevator is a confined space where one can easily contract a virus (when coughed on or due to close contact of someone infected).
With a virus present, people have resorted to using their knuckles or covering their fingers with their jackets or with gloves to operate elevators.
There are many variations of elevators today. Some open on different sides depending on the level. When it comes to interface, some have relied solely on digital interfaces (2 MetroTech I think) with no buttons inside the elevator which may help with more efficiently assessing necessary stops. Others are confusing (Bobst) where the panels that are supposed to tell you where an elevator is on a different wall and are all clumped together making it hard to distinguish which one corresponds to which elevator.
Sometimes, outside elevators, there are also indications of what/who is on a specific floor. Some elevators have security features too that require an ID to operate. Some elevators only cater to a set range of floors.
Some cool elevator designs:
My bad ideas and observations:
I believe it is possible to use my microcontroller to create at least the basic functions of an elevator. I attempted to wire two button switches and two LEDs where when you press a switch (up) one LED lights up and when you press the other (down) the other (down) lights up and the first one (up) shuts off.
I may have done something wrong because I got this error.
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