14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that tree houses are not fancy anymore. Kids nowadays are living in a more modern world and have more innovative toys. Let's take a look, for example, at this homemade mission control center, which was built from scratch by a loving father for his child.
To encourage his son's love for space and school, Jeff Highsmith decided to build a unique mission control console that closes up and serves as a regular homework desk when it's not in use.
“With the start of school my son needed a homework desk, I wanted to build him a great one, so I included an extra feature,” said Highsmith, referring to the fact that the desk can easily turn into a mission control center.
According to The Telegraph, the NASA-inspired Mission Control Desk plays space-related sounds and is equipped with many knobs, buttons, switches and flickering lights. The control panel is hidden behind a usual slanted desktop.
The underside of the panel is covered with magnetic primer and shows a world map, which allows the user to pinpoint the exact position of a spacecraft in orbit.
“I researched the Apollo Program, as well as NASA's Mission Control Centre, and designed my own console roughly based on those. I say 'roughly' because the actual Mission Control does more monitoring than controlling, and isn't awash in the whiz-bang rocket noises young kids appreciate,” said Highsmith in his tutorial.
What's more, Highsmith equipped the space-themed desk with an Arduino microcontroller and a Raspberry Pi minicomputer. The technology allows the kid to control the LED lights and sound effects, and even to start a sequence of events thanks to the special controls included in the panel. An iPad is also embedded in the console and serves as display for space-related videos.
He programmed the Mission Control Desk not only to simulate disasters, like the one suffered by Apollo 12 spacecraft, but also to fix them.
Highsmith's invention impressed quite a lot of people in the online world, with many leaving commentaries on the video posted on YouTube and included at the end of this article.
“Wow, that kid will have a lot of fun. Must have taken a long time to finish the desk, but I think that dad must have tuns of fun making it,” wrote YouTube user Jimmy Persson.
Highsmith says he is now considering building a spacecraft to accompany the mission control center. Additional technical details about the Mission Control Desk can be found on Makezine, the site presenting the invention.
