Spaceship Control Panel

My family went up to Washington State on vacation, and while there we went to a children's museum. They had a mock police car, fire truck, ambulance, and helicopter that kids could go in and play with the many controls. Some switches would turn lights on and off, others would play sounds. My son absolutely loved it. He needed one of his own. I made a big order off Adafruit the next day.

And what better thing to build than a spaceship control panel?

I want to create it such that it can be expanded in the future as he gets older. Then instead of just toggling lights and playing canned sounds, he would actually have to follow certain procedures to make things happen.

It's nowhere near this guy's creation:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/mission-control-desk/
http://makezine.com/2014/06/26/making-fun-kids-room-spacecraft/
But it's sufficient for my son now, and it will get better. :-)

For this first iteration I won't get too complicated. I'll have a variety of inputs that control lights and sounds. I actually put a lot of time into which buttons and switches to have. The Apollo sim I linked to above it awesome, but I want my son to be able to replicate future space travel among the stars ("Foundation" style). So the controls I ultimately went with could be used for privateers smuggling cargo across the Confederation, battling Romulans near the neutral zone, or searching for the mythical planet Earth. At this point the buttons will repeat the same sounds every time you push them, but when my son gets older I can tie in a microcontroller to put more logic in the responses.

The Components

1 - 2'x2' 1/4" Birch Sheet (Lowes)
3 - Power On/Off Switch (Radio Shack)
2 - Red Toggle Button (Radio Shack)
2 - Protected Switch (Radio Shack)
9 - SPST 5VDC Reed Relay (Radio Shack)
6 - 16mm Illuminated Pushbutton - Red Momentary (Adafruit)
11 - Diffused White 10mm LED (Adafruit)
1 - LED Illuminated Pushbutton - 30mm Round (Adafruit)
1 - Audio FX Sound Board - WAV/OGG Trigger with 16MB Flash (Adafruit)
1 - USB Powered Speakers (Adafruit)
1 - 5V 2A (2000mA) switching power supply (Adafruit)
1 - Breadboard-friendly 2.1mm DC barrel jack (Adafruit)
1 - 5V 2A Switching Power Supply w/ USB-A Connector (Adafruit)
1 - Kindle Fire (Amazon)
1 - IKEA Side Table (IKEA)
Lots of 22 Gauge Solid Core Wire & Resistors

The Build

Measure and drill some holes... I also cut a large opening for the tablet screen...

Painted white with the controls mounted...

A spare IKEA side table was a quick way to give it a stable base.

Wiring it up...

(Yeah I know the wires are a mess. There is plenty of slack to get them tidied up, but the time to do so is limited.)

Final Product

I found a 3-D space program on the Kindle that is absolutely perfect for the control panel.

The primary and emergency light switches currently just toggle their white LEDs, but eventually I'll have them control 120V external lighting. (I've got some relays that can close a 120V A/C circuit with just 3V.)

The shield, cargo bay, and tractor beam switches toggle their corresponding white LEDs and close a relay for the Audio FX board to play an appropriate sound.

The Visual Scanner, Radar Scanner, Initiate Takeoff, and Initiate Landing buttons are all momentary buttons. While pressed, the white LED illuminates and the Audio FX board plays an appropriate sound. When released the LED extinguishes.

The weapon systems are probably the most complicated. The red momentary buttons are only illuminated (and functional) if the protected arming switches are raised. Pressing them causes some nice launch effects to be played.

The Initiate Warp Speed button is always illuminated, but it plays a nice sound effect when pressed.

There is always room for improvement, but for now my son is happy and occupied for a little longer each day! :-)

Halloween 2015

There is decent progress on the servo controller, but this past month has been crazy busy. I've drawn up some designs in Blender that I need to 3-D print. The new parts include the upper frame of the controller and blocks the servos will manipulate.

In the mean time, another short term project popped up as a nice distraction. My son's first Halloween was coming up (technically second, but he was a bit young for the first), and he needed a costume. There's nothing better than a spaceship, so my wife and I built one...

The skeleton was built with PVC.

Some cardboard spray painted silver made up the skin.

My son is too young to hold a bag for candy, so my wife came up with the idea of a compartment under the hood of the spacecraft to be his candy bag. We cut a simple L shaped lever out of some plywood, drilled a pivot hole in the center of the lever, drilled a second hole for a string at the end of the lower leg, and mounted it underneath the hood.

The lever pivots freely about its center. We tied a string through the lower leg, brought it forward (wrapping it around the front frame), then funneled it back to the rear of the spacecraft. Now we can pull the string in the back and it forces the hood up!

No spacecraft is complete without lights, so we picked up 2 white LEDs for the front, a red LED for the left, and a green LED for the right. A little bit of soldering and the we were in business. (Not the best wiring job, but it only needed to last one night.)

Spacesuit is a requirement (he kept that helmet on just long enough to take this picture, then it was gone).

Ready to go Trick or Treating! (My wife made an outfit just for pushing around the spacecraft - she's the "flames" coming out the back.)

FYI - the name of the ship is "Far Star". Give yourself +10 geek points if you know the reference.

The bar has been set... what will we do next year?