Malaysian dad builds daughter mini simulator rig from scratch
Jerrica · Feb 19, 2021 06:07 PM
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The lockdown isn’t all bad for some of us that has a flair for DIY work. This Malaysian dad spent his Movement Control Order (MCO) building a simulator rig for not only himself, but for his 5-year-old daughter as well.
According to an interview with Says, car racing simulator enthusiast Chris Aaron initially started building a simulator rig for himself but it has always been his intention to teach his daughter the basics of how to handle a car at a young age.
However, he quickly realised that his daughter, Abby, could barely reach the pedals and steering wheel, thus making it a challenge to teach her how to drive on the rig.
"I'm not the kind of person that buys something like this off the shelf. So after having put my main 'sim rig' together, I realised I had almost quite a few parts left and joked with my wife that I could actually make Abby a rig of her own," he shared in an interview with SAYS.
"I kept looking for a way to add things like pedal extensions to my rig so that she could drive it. But as soon as I realised that she could have her own rig, game on," he said.
That was how the idea of building a go-kart-like simulator started and since he had 40 percent of the materials leftover from the first build, it was a simple matter of filling in the gaps.
Chris told Says that the remaining parts he had to purchase from Shopee cost around RM 600. The steering wheel set and TV monitor cost several hundreds more.
"Knowing five-year-olds and how rough they can be sometimes, the final product ended up being a mix of a go-kart style thing with a more conventional rig – it was the only way to get the kind of strength I needed to accommodate a kid letting loose on Mario Kart."
Chris is taking the saying “start them young” to a whole new level! Legally.
There isn’t a time in memory that doesn’t involve staring at cars. After discovering the excitement of watching Schumacher vs Hakkinen, Formula 1 became a major part of life. The love for cars and F1 ultimately led to a job with CAR Magazine. The untimely death of the magazine meant a hiatus from cars at lifestyle women’s magazine Marie Claire before another opportunity came knocking again.