Virtual racing and flying, two developments in the e-sports world that have massively grown in popularity in the last few years. Due to an influx of new gamers during the covid-pandemic, this form of (digital) sport has recently become the go-to form for many gamers. Jordy van Oosten, an industrial product designer, sim-racer and experienced product engineer knows all about it.
A racing seat, pedals, a steering wheel and a proper gaming-pc. Those are the ingredients for an unrivaled racing experience without the need to leave your house. That said, it doesn’t come as a surprise that simulation gaming like flight-sims and sim-racing have become very popular during the pandemic. People were locked in their homes, but found entertainment in these hobby’s. After noticing this trend and finding his niche problem, Jordy went all-in, and founded Roger Roger Engineering.
An expensive hobby
Jordy: “I’ve been sim-racing for over 10 years now, which is not a cheap hobby as soon as you start getting into it more and more. Everyone starts out cheap, but once you start it’s difficult to stop… down the rabbit hole as they say.”
Making sim-racing and flight-simulation quite an expensive hobby down the line. A proper rig can easily set you back several thousands of euro’s.
“How nice would it be if you’d only need one set of hardware, that can be used for racing and flying?”
One rig for racing and flying
A lot of sim-racers and flight-simmers use a fully standalone simrig for racing or flying. Jordy: “How nice would it be if you only needed one set of hardware, that can be used for racing and flying? It would save consumers a lot of money, time and space. No longer needing two seperate rigs, or having to swap out hardware all the time” And that actually makes a lot of sense.
Adjusting hardware
And he was not the only one walking around with these questions, Jordy soon realized. There should be an easy and accessible way to combine the virtual worlds of flying and racing. This let to an idea; “What if I could change or improve the hardware sim-racers use so it can be used for flight-sims as well, it could save a lot of money and effort”.
This let to Roger Roger Engineering, a start up founded by Jordy with the goal to combine the worlds of sim-racing and flight-sims. He dove straight into the research and development necessary to achieve this goal. It’s a good thing he has close to 4 years of experience as a product engineer in the sim-racing market to pour into the challenges that lay ahead.
Plug & play
“I want to keep it as simple and easy as possible. Most racing simulators have a steering wheel that can be disconnected from the wheelbase. The place where the wheel can be (dis)connected can be used to mount additional hardware, before mounting the steering wheel.
This pretty standard mechanism is to be the core of Jordy’s solution. By developing a plug & play piece of hardware it becomes possible to easily convert the racing simulator into a flying simulator. IKARUS, as the product is called, is mounted between steering wheel and wheel base.
Lots to learn
Jordy is a student Industrial Product Design at the university of applied sciences Windesheim. Here you learn designing and developing products, mainly by researching how the end-user will use and experience said product. Based on that research one starts designing and developing a product. Because of the additional challenge on subjects like electronics and mechanics Jordy uses his free time to learn the necessary knowledge needed to make IKARUS a reality.
Jordy: “I spent a lot of time learning about electronics, simply by watching youtube video’s or following basic tutorials. It quickly teaches me how to design a circuit board or work with certain components. It takes up quite a bit of time, but eventually I find out what works and what doesn’t. Then I try to find out why something works, or not, so I find out what I need to change in my product.
DFM
Currently the prototype for IKARUS is finished, which started the Design for Manufacturing phase of the development process. A known term for those in the engineering industry. Jordy: “DFM is done by combining validated working principles and concepts into a final product that can actually be produced within the demands set for the project.”
Jordy: “After the DFM phase the goal is to introduce IKARUS to the market, then I will focus on what people think of it, which will validate the worth of the product.”
Besides launching his company, Jordy is also working on his final thesis to graduate as a product designer. Jordy: “It’s pretty cool, now I can do my final thesis within my own company!”
This article is translated to English