Wow! Sometimes it’s good to be a kid. Especially the kid of a father who designs AND BUILDS a spacecraft to sleep and play in. This Make article shows the amount of detail and time a crafty father put into building a spacecraft in his son’s bedroom.
There are communications, sound effects, lights, and switches. The spacecraft itself looks like a flattened capsule. There’s even a pneumatic tube system running between rooms! The father used Raspberry Pi and Arduinos to help as controllers and sound effects sequencers. There’s also a payload bay for the child to remotely control a robotic arm to send off and get payloads.
I can hear it now: “Open the pod bay doors, dad.” “I’m sorry son, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” I look at this project and think about how this might spark a child’s imagination to become a space explorer. It’s a very cool project and if you have the skill and a child interested in space, it might be a fun build. Just go to the Make website to see exactly what was done.
The Mad Spaceball 