By far the coolest thing I’ve worked on is the Mechatron!
Mechatron VR is a six-seat motion platform combined with synchronized VR playback and an external soundtrack. Frame procured and imported the motion platform from China in early 2016. I worked with the studios’ programmers and engineers for over 6 months to reverse engineer the platform’s control system to be able to move it directly from the Unity3D game engine.
Working with students from North Metropolitan TAFE and interns from SAE Institute Perth, several pieces of original animated, 360 content was created. Each piece of content was designed to investigate the possibilities and capabilities of the system.
As lead Technical Director on the project, I organised the various teams working on the project and was responsible for developing and integrating the original network system for sync playback of the 360 videos in the mobile VR headsets with the motion of the platform.
The Mechatron VR ride has been run successfully at several events:
- Kaleidoscope: Festival of Light (2016) in the City of Joondalup
- Rio Tinto Innovation Festival (2017) at Scitech
- Sexpo Perth (2017) at the Perth Convention Centre
- Imaginarium VR concept store at Enex on Hay St
- MadFest Anime Convention Perth (2018) at the Perth Convention Centre
- Alcoa Children’s Festival in Kwinanna (2019)
- Christmas at the Perth Market (2020)
In early 2018 Frame was invited to participate in the Village Digital/Microsoft Xperience Accelerator program at Collective Campus in Melbourne. Through the program, we developed a plan to scale our 6 seat Mechatron VR ride up to a 48 seat, theme park focused ride.
To date over 4,000 people have ridden the Mechatron … and no one has vomited! 😀
