ThereJET

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  Title Page

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  Ground view of plane interface

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  Plane mid-flight

Inspiration

The theremin is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact. It consists of two antennas that detect the musician's relative hand positions in its xy-axis space to determine frequency and amplitude of sound. Though often associated with eerie soundtracks, I personally have always found this quite the intriguing instrument - both in a sound and technology capacity.

What it does

This project aims to create a flight simulator experience in which the user controls the plane as one would play a theremin, based on relative cursor or gesture positioning within an axis-defined space, complete with dynamic audio feedback to indicate changes in roll, pitch, and yaw.

The goal was to create an interface that could - given the correct hardware - be implemented using a real theremin.

How we built it

The project was built entirely on Unity 2021.3.14f1, relying on the built-in physics engine to provide a base for the additional Rigidbody manipulation necessary to create a realistic flight experience.

Challenges we ran into

1) Understanding and Simulating the mechanics of flight. 2) Differentiating between adequate landings and crashes. 3) Manually adjusting system dampening as well as gravity for more realistic results.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Though I had done physics-based simulations in C++ before, this was my first time getting to experiment with Unity's own system to a more advanced degree, and thus I am proud to have overcome the learning curve and achieved a project that I am proud of.

What we learned

How to fly a plane while playing the theremin... In theory, at the very least. On a more serious note: the intricacies of flight simulation as well as ways to simplify said calculations with minimal performance loss. This project also made me realize that unconventional choices for UI/UX can often lead to great results, and so I can see myself being more daring in my future design endeavors because of it.

What's next for ThereJET

I would love to be able to get the control input from an actual theremin. More realistically, however, I believe there is a lot of room for expanding on the simulation itself - many cockpit elements and degrees of freedom were omitted due to the tight schedule, so it would be nice to implement them in the future, as well as a more robust physics mechanic for the takeoff, landing, and collisions.

Built With

• c#
• unity