aci, Cube cam rotomoulded bases

Defense project for ACI in the USA. Our clients had been stuck in a costly development path which turned out to be a dead end. We were brought in to trouble shoot the project and offer a viable pathway to assist in them delivering this $60M USD VR troop training system.

About the Project

Client

ACI

Services

Product Design | Prototype Design | Design for Manufacture

Cube Cam Rotomoulded Bases

Challenge

A common mistake we see time and time again, is when companies rely soley on engineering teams. Often engineering mindset needs to be balanced with industrial design when developing a product for market. The case is true for ACI, their solution was overweight, over complex and had over 600 components. The requirement was to produce a VR cube system. a 10x10x10 Ft cube to enable the rigging of 8 x optical tracking motion capture cameras. This rig has to be rugged enough to be used in theater and fundamentally had to fit into a FedEx air freight volume, when packed down.

Outcome

Something seen in our approach very often is to look at simplicity first. Look for something elegant, make your materials work hard for you and reduce the component count. The system could be erected in 5 minutes, using water filled Rotomoulded bases, to act as stable, cantilevering bases for the custom telescopic camera bodies.

FPD came in on target with a design solution that met all their design criteria for something modular, stable and light enough to pack as air freight. We developed and produced the entire tracking frame. We were very pleased to change the fortunes of ACI, this design rescue, managed to help them secure a $60M delivery to the US National Guard. An unsurpassed troop training system which has saved countless lives.