Eight steel cables, each with 1.4 tons of tensions, hold aloft a caged platform with a seat for one person. Using a wireless VR headset, that person can simulate experiences like flight while being zoomed in dozens of different ways. Eight retracting cables connected to a winch pull on the cage. It's like a giant, flying VR jungle gym.
Professor Heinrich Bülthoff and his research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics showed off their handiwork, the CableRobot Simulator, at a conference in Tübingen, Germany on September 16. The contraption is the realization of a two-year collaboration. It can put 1.5 G's of acceleration on its rider.
The scientists built this wild machine because their institute specifically studies the ways in which our brains process signals and information. No surprise, then, that they're keenly interested in VR. We know the information that our senses process can change our behavior, but the exact mechanisms for how that happens, the Institutes says, is "less well understood."
What we do understand is that we'd like to ride in this thing as soon as possible.