Classic Tank Simulator Drives Round a Miniature Panorama

So, you assume your iRacing sim rig is fairly outrageous, huh? Positive, it’s acquired a full-motion base and it’s powered by an actual hot-rod of a PC, however I’m right here to let you know that your rig is crap and that the Swiss constructed the last word sim rig within the Nineteen Seventies —to show troopers the right way to drive tanks. Why they’d must, I can’t say (that is Switzerland, in any case), but it surely’s cool anyway.

So, as a result of computer systems sucked within the Nineteen Seventies, creating a sensible coaching simulator utilizing pc graphics wasn’t actually an possibility. It could have seemed like a shittier Nintendo Digital Boy, most likely trigger loads of complications, and probably not be a profit to anybody. As a substitute, these enterprising Swiss constructed an enormous, room-sized terrain mannequin and fitted a tiny digicam to a motorized gantry. The tank-driver-in-training sits in a recreation of a cockpit, working a steering wheel, pedals, and switches, and the digicam strikes across the scale-model panorama based mostly on the motive force’s inputs. The cockpit sits on high of hydraulic cylinders that jostle the motive force because the tank drives over varied terrain, including realism to the expertise.

This video by YouTuber Tom Scott exhibits how the system works and what the crew on the Swiss Navy Museum needed to undergo to get the simulator operating once more. Spoiler alert: it’s powered by a Raspberry Pi. Wild, I do know.

The perfect a part of all that is that you would be able to go to the Swiss Navy Museum in Full-Reuenthal, and so they’ll allow you to attempt it out — throat mic, headset and all. That they’d let the general public do this, with it being the one functioning unit in your complete world, is fairly wild.

Additionally, I’ve to get a few of these dope Alpenflage coveralls. Name me, guys.