Hackaday: It’s surprisingly easy to misjudge tips that come into the Hackaday tip line. After filtering out the omnipresent spam, a quick scan of tip titles will often form a quick impression that turns out to be completely wrong. Such was the case with a recent tip that seemed from the subject line to be a flight simulator cockpit. The mental picture I had was of a model cockpit hooked to Flight Simulator or some other off-the-shelf flying game, many of which we’ve seen over the years.
4 comments:
Being from Dallas it's crazy to think that such an incredible tool like the Dallas Makerspace was available and able to aid in creating such a unique and incredible product. I had many friends that for the small cost (relative to the resources provided) of $50 a month had memberships to such a comprehensive place that they never used. I have to say after seeing the short that I was impressed with the real feeling of movement as well as how much work went into the backend of creating this. While it was only one minute and the actual footage of the cockpit in flight simulation was only a fraction of that, Hobbs went through such a laborious process to pull it off. I do have to say I wish the language of the article had been a little more explanatory because there were many parts that I skimmed over not because they weren't interesting but because I didn't understand them. Things like "heavy-duty three-axis gimbal, including a massive bearing from a pallet jack for the yaw axis" are not the easiest to understand for the untrained mind and a big part of exposing and introducing others to this kind of work is making it intellectually accessible for them.
Maker spaces are the absolute coolest places ever! A few years ago, I spent my summer taking an engineering design course at the makerspace called Tech Shop (has since closed) in Crystal City, VA. There was someone building a plane (a full one, not a portion of one like this article describes), other people building furniture, and government guys doing computer engineering. It was honestly one of the most versatile meeting spaces of creativity, engineering, science, and art that I have ever seen in my life. This project described in the article seems like a perfect way to use a maker space! Providing manufacturing tools alongside talented “kindred spirits” who are generally willing to help, maker spaces are great for projects that are a bit more entrepreneurial. I love that he used a custom iPad app to animate parts of the panel during filming. The final product looks fantastic (even without a moving propeller)!
With all the major, big-budget Hollywood movies these days, it’s easy to forget these true craftsmen who can make something beautiful out of next to nothing. I spoke about big budgets in Hollywood films in a comment last week. Regardless, Hollywood filmmakers receive millions and millions of dollars to create these visual masterpieces, and of course they look good – they have the capability to buy old aircraft and build whole buildings if they so choose. That being said, though, there are countless lesser known filmmakers who work freelance and create beautiful projects such as this cockpit described in the article. This cockpit obviously cost money to build, however, the total sum is likely nothing even near what a Hollywood production would’ve spent on the exact same thing. Smaller filmmakers like Grant Hobbs deserve so much more recognition for their work. I see him and many others like him as true craftsmen, who not only make these films, but also do most of the work for the films. Hobbs didn’t have a scenic designer, or a director. He didn’t have a lighting designer or a production crew. He did all of these jobs, with a little help from the friendly makerspace. Truly, an impressive man and an impressive feat.
Makerspaces are a relatively new concept to me. I had never heard of them till coming to CMU. Now after learning how to use 3-D printers and Laser cutters I couldn’t imagine life without one. Almost anything can be created using these materials with much less time and money. For instance this year I even created my Halloween decorations using a laser cutter. I cut bats and pumpkins and a huge web to put in the window. The process took so little time and zero money because the material was from a scrap pile. I am sure that in the future I will take advantage of makerspaces near me to laser cut model pieces in a fraction of the time at a much higher level than possible by hand. By hand, cutting the same pieces over and over again to achieve the desired thickness leaves a lot of room for error. With the laser cutter, this can be done precisely or you have the option to just use a thicker material from the start.
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