DRIVR Part 9: One bite at a time

A journey of one thousand miles begins with deciding that it would take way too long to walk that far, and wouldn't it be easier to build a car instead? Okay, cool, but we don't have enough money to build a car, and even if we did, we've got no place to put it, and also we're not exactly sure how cars work in the first place. But we definitely know that we don't want to walk...

Welcome to entrepreneurship. When I use the E-word, I mean it in the way that Harvard Business School defines it (pursuing novel opportunities while lacking resources), not the way that most "entrepreneurs" do (anybody with a pulse). So this is the first and last time I'll use that word, because I would hate to have to roll my eyes at my own blog post. However, we can still talk about the challenges related to bringing an idea to life when you don't have an emerald mine to fund the development.

DRIVR began with the question "Can we drive with VR?" Some of the best engineers are lazy (and The Dude was most certainly that), and so we want answers quickly and without much effort. The problem was that I had never touched a VR headset at this point, let alone developed an application to run on one. I also didn't exactly have an appropriate test vehicle at my disposal. Given the "far-outness" of the idea, I wasn't keen to drop several thousand dollars just to see if I were right (or at least, not immediately wrong). It's at this stage that I believe many ideas die, either due to a gap in technical knowledge or insufficient funding. But if you conveniently have a flaw in your psyche that ties your self-worth to your productive output (with a bonus complex that ensures that nothing you do will ever be enough), then you'll find a way to make progress, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

The go-kart above was meant for a child. The GPS antennas were attached by means of a construction level. The driver had to hold the laptop in their lap (wait, is that why it's called that?), and the headset was homemade. The game experience was so jittery that it felt like you were mainlining a bottle of 500-hour Energy™. And you know what? It was STILL fun. So we took another step.

Big-time upgrades for the driver: No more holding the laptop, and the headset was now a better homemade, slightly less acid-flashback-inducing contraption. The GPS situation was probably worse (we used a ruler instead of a level this time, still not sure why), but we were driving actual laps with this thing! Fast-forward past three more iterations and you arrive at the current DRIVR test vehicle:

First of all, I want to congratulate you on your powers of perception, as you no doubt have noticed that this is not a go-kart. It probably looks like something that would come out of Pimp My Ride if they funded the show with whatever loose change was found in the cup holders. But while this vehicle bears little resemblance to the final product, it has several benefits:

• It places the GPS antennas above the rider

• There is plenty of room for all the electronics

• The entire shelf unit can be detached by removing four bolts

• It folds up and fits in my car

• When you're wearing the headset, you can't see all the people laughing at you

This trike has been immensely useful for our testing efforts. One surprising thing we learned was that driving in VR is fun even if you're going really slowly. As long as you're moving freely and of your own accord, you quickly get lost in the world around you. This is great news in terms of being able to shrink the playable area, which allows us to operate in more places. We will continue to use this vehicle to validate our hardware and software while we're working on the go-kart, but it's nice to know that all the bugs should be sorted out by the time our new vehicle is ready. ALL. THE. BUGS.

-Greg

The story continues with Part 10: Talk the talk