rLoop – Having Fun | Eleccelerator

Being a part of rLoop was actually the most stressful thing I have done in my life. I took up a leader and mentor roll at the build site, people looked up to me to teach them skills and also to ensure their safety. I also made sure everybody had fun on our way to victory. This page is to showcase everything non-technical that I’ve contributed to the team.

The rLoop Ignition Console

Since I designed the first draft of the power management circuitry, I also got the chance to design the remote ignition system of the pod. Since the pod looked like a missile, I decided to go with a missile launch control theme. The case is 3D printed by me, and inside is a circuit whipped up with a Teensy. There is even a real fingerprint scanner on it (a GT-511C1R)! I also designed the keychains and handed them out to close and important team members, on the back it, it says “REMOVE BEFORE HOVER”.

Award

We won the Innovation Award from SpaceX but we only had one certificate to prove it. I felt that all the team members deserved their own, so I took it upon myself to create these for everybody.

It’s laser etched 6mm thick acrylic. There is a photo inserted behind it and the photo is held in place with magnets. This can be placed on a desk or on a fridge as a magnet.

Timelapse

We setup Go Pro cameras in the labs, I created this timelapse video for the team. Unfortunately, we needed the camera to do more important things, such as being a remote safety monitor camera for the battery tests, and we did not capture the rest of the build. Sorry.

Road Trip

(WARNING: long video) In November, we had scheduled to test-fit our uncompleted pod at SpaceX where they had a open air test track. We had to show up at 8AM but we did not have the pod in a ready state and loaded into the trailer until much past midnight. I loaded up my own SUV to the absolute brim with tools and supplys and went ahead just so we can sign in to SpaceX on time, the pod was in a RV an hour behind us.

This was absolutely dangerous, you can imagine how much pressure we were under and how much sleep we didn’t have, you can see my driving deteriorate and eventually I gave up and swapped to my backup driver. Enjoy the sunrise.

PSVR Launch

My day job is an engineer at PlayStation, naturally, I brought a launch edition PSVR to rLoop, it’s not like I’d have time to play at home since I was at rLoop 7 days a week. Enjoy Tom and Ruchi having a blast with “London Heist”: