Idea Bazaar

The flight simulator had its first public showing at the June Idea Bazaar sponsored by the Thinkubator Community. A wide variety of people from all over the library community came by and a few daring folks even sat down for a test flight.

More progress...

Well, two days and four drill bits later, the casters are finally mounted. They had to be modified from the original design. Instead of bending the caster fork, steel brackets were custom created from spare steel and were then fastened to the gimbal frame. Turns out, it worked equally as well after extending the base about 2".

The PVC Frame as it is now:


A short clip of the rolling motion in action:

The control panel is done. Wiring and labels to be completed after all PVC work is done. This will be mounted inside the PVC frame.

Below are two photos of the current status of the PVC frame. All pieces are complete however I've run into a bit of a snag mounting the casters. I've come up with an alternate design which should work the same but will involve mounting L-brackets to the casters and extending the base dimensions by a bit. I'd estimate my total project completion at about 80% thus far.

PVC cuts are complete. Need to bend forks on casters to allow first semblance of motion.

Control panel layout is complete. Wiring begins soon.

PVC is in place and awaiting cuts. Rough mockup of control panel complete.

The "Joyrider" model will be used to provide a low-cost means of reproducing sensations of movement. It's model can later be modified to further enhance movement as specified here.

Immersion is the state where you cease to be aware of your physical self. It is frequently accompanied by intense focus, distorted sense of time and effortless action.^[1]

^ Varney, Allen (August 8, 2006). Immersion Unexplained (HTML). The Escapist. Retrieved on 2007-04-06

• Visual: Modern graphic cards, expansive screen
  
• Tactile: Force feedback from unit, switches & panels mimic flight dash
  
• Aural: Force feedback from audio signal, headphones coupled with surround sound
• Motion: Motion of unit coupled with head tracking technology