Awesome Elevators

A gravity well is a cone-shaped device that pulls marbles or other small balls into its center like a vortex. JBV Creative built a version of a gravity well connected to an elevator, so as spheres drop through its middle, they head back up to the top and start their journey all over again. It’s incredibly satisfying once he drops thousands of steel balls into it.

After testing various LEGO door mechanisms, the Brick Experiment Channel is back with another series of engineering tests using LEGO and Technic parts. While most of their brick-built elevator and lift designs are motorized, one of them runs on pneumatic power. That scissor lift and rotating lift inspired by Scotland’s Falkirk Wheel are really neat.

If you’re the head of a big corporation, you can’t be bothered to share an elevator with other people. At the Baťa Skyscraper in Zlín, Czechia, the company’s owner had a special elevator built that carries his office to any floor. Tom Scott got a tour of this architecturally significant building and took a ride in the office that Jan Antonín Baťa never got to use.

City dwellers take elevators for granted. But without these engineered marvels, we’d be stuck climbing staircases and probably not have skyscrapers. Illustrator and educator Jared Owen shares another informative 3D animation explaining the inner workings of these metal boxes we trust with our lives on an everyday basis.

This unique system parks cars in an underground garage while taking up minimal space. TreviPark’s silo-shaped parking lot has spaces set up in a circular arrangement around a central elevator which can rotate to access a specific car, then lift it to the surface. Here’s an interior view from another car’s perspective.

Take a ride on what is now the steepest funicular railway, a marvel of engineering that carries passengers up a mountain in Stoos, Switzerland at a crazy 110º gradient. It lifts more than 89,000 pounds, nearly 2500 feet in altitude along its 1.07-mile route.

Liam Thompson’s cat is currently 20 years old. The old guy is having trouble getting around these days – especially going up and down the stairs. So Liam, being a nice guy and an industrious builder, fabricated a custom elevator just for kitty. The basket rides on rails and is powered by a small electric hoist.

A while back, Tom Scott checked out an elevator that can move both horizontally and vertically. At the time, he thought there was no way to smoothly change angles without stopping, but he was wrong. The Schmid Peoplemover can do just that, transporting passengers up, across a bridge, and back down on the other side.

Award-winning director Sam Pilling and a very talented creative team pulled off this bonkers commercial for Winamax. After winning big on the online betting site, a man treats his mother to a first-class flight, only she doesn’t get in a cab and head to the airport, she takes the elevator.

Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything is engaged to Cambry Kaylor, who suffered a tragic horseback accident when she was 18, leaving her partially paralyzed. To improve her mobility in their home, he ripped a hole through the second floor, and installed a Stiltz Lifts elevator for her to get up and downstairs with ease.

Tom Scott traveled to ThyssenKrupp’s testing facility to check out MULTI, a rope-free elevator that not only can move upwards and downwards, but sideways to change which shaft its riding using rotating tracks and linear motors. It’s kind of like the Wonkavator IRL.

Located in the Wulingyuan region of Zhangjiajie, China, the Bailong (aka “Hundred Dragons”) Elevator is a 1,070 foot-tall glass elevator. While some might question the impact it has on nature, it’s an incredible feat of engineering, and provides astounding views.

This marvel of modern engineering at China’s Three Gorges Dam is capable of lifting 6.7 million pounds of boats, water, and people to a height of over 34 stories. It takes 40 minutes to get to the top, shaving more than 2 hours off of the previous route over the dam.