How Elevators Work
Instead of working, I've been looking up how elevators work. Not the mechanics of opening, closing and not plummeting, but how they know where to go. This is easy for single elevators, but I've always wondered how banks of elevators know which one to send when/where. Today I actually went ahead and looked it up.
I was a little afraid it would be deeply disappointing, like crosswalk buttons. When I was young (you know, under 20) I assumed crosswalks did all kinds of super-clever things. Specifically, I assumed that if I pushed the button a lot, it would think there were lots of people and change sooner. It never even occurred to me to test this theory, it was just obvious. After all, the more people there are, the more urgent it is that they cross. It was a sad day when I learned the crosswalks just didn't care if there was one of me or twenty.
Fortunately, elevators are cooler than that. Much like arguments about the frequency of intelligent life, I suppose, you can deduce this fact based on the fact that the post is here to read. OK, sort of like arguments about intelligent life. It makes sense, really!
First, I turned to Wikipedia (The Elevator Algorithm). Already, I've found awesome elevator modes. In the morning, when everyone arrives, empty elevators are sent to the lobby to wait for the next batch. In the evening, they're distributed among upper floors waiting for people to head down again. There are even rarer and stranger modes as well. (I've never actually seen the apparently cutting-edge 'Destination floor control system' elevators, which lets people push a button for their destination, rather than just up or down, and groups them accordingly.) Digging a little more, (elevator on answers.com), I found elevator banks where each elevator has a designated home floors, and cover sectors of calls.
I didn't find as much about elevator algorithms as I'd hoped, but at least my basic interest is satisfied. Now I'll have slightly more information when I wish that the student center elevators were linked to each other, or at least had one return to the 5th floor and one to the 1st when they don't have calls. (Instead of the current "both elevators heading in the same direction" *all* the time, because the fastest way to get an elevator is to push both buttons.)
I was a little afraid it would be deeply disappointing, like crosswalk buttons. When I was young (you know, under 20) I assumed crosswalks did all kinds of super-clever things. Specifically, I assumed that if I pushed the button a lot, it would think there were lots of people and change sooner. It never even occurred to me to test this theory, it was just obvious. After all, the more people there are, the more urgent it is that they cross. It was a sad day when I learned the crosswalks just didn't care if there was one of me or twenty.
Fortunately, elevators are cooler than that. Much like arguments about the frequency of intelligent life, I suppose, you can deduce this fact based on the fact that the post is here to read. OK, sort of like arguments about intelligent life. It makes sense, really!
First, I turned to Wikipedia (The Elevator Algorithm). Already, I've found awesome elevator modes. In the morning, when everyone arrives, empty elevators are sent to the lobby to wait for the next batch. In the evening, they're distributed among upper floors waiting for people to head down again. There are even rarer and stranger modes as well. (I've never actually seen the apparently cutting-edge 'Destination floor control system' elevators, which lets people push a button for their destination, rather than just up or down, and groups them accordingly.) Digging a little more, (elevator on answers.com), I found elevator banks where each elevator has a designated home floors, and cover sectors of calls.
I didn't find as much about elevator algorithms as I'd hoped, but at least my basic interest is satisfied. Now I'll have slightly more information when I wish that the student center elevators were linked to each other, or at least had one return to the 5th floor and one to the 1st when they don't have calls. (Instead of the current "both elevators heading in the same direction" *all* the time, because the fastest way to get an elevator is to push both buttons.)