The concept behind this project was to make space ship control panels that homage to old-school gaming by borrowing their shapes from Tetris. The Space ship is the set for a friend’s music video
For this project, I used some transparent blue and red acrylic I got at the local plastics shop on markdown. I used a laser to cut the basic shapes. Four of the five panels I made are pictured above. I didn’t have the materials necessary to make all the shapes found in the game. I was able to squeeze all of these shapes and the unpictured second blue “L” into two 18″x24″ sheets.
I laid out the control surfaces (switches and dials) roughly where each will go.
Once I had the control surfaces located on the panels, I drilled and placed each.
Don’t drill acrylic if you have access to a laser. Acrylic is brittle and doesn’t take internal stress very well. I should have made all of these circular cuts on the laser when I cut out the initial shapes. Balls.
Regardless, I ended up using the cracked panel with some blatantly obvious tape (here, lemme point it out to you so you can’t not see it).
Here’s a video of me testing all the panels after I’ve wired them up.
In addition to the ship control panels, I also scrounged up some parts to make the “reset switch” that was the McGuffin of the video’s story.
We had a good time shooting the video. At some point we were chased out by rain, but the camera crew got all the footage that day.
Check out the video in its entirtety: An Hobbes – “Away Team”
Remember, DON’T PANIC!