Tim Hunkin’s Air Raid Simulator
By Chuck Cage
This is one of Tim Hunkins’ “arcade” machines. The two seagulls rotate above the game and the screen below shows a downward view from the seagulls’ butts — complete with a target. The player then presses a button to make the bird poop a mint candy.
Tim trained as an engineer, then moved on to cartooning and writing the famous “Secret Life of Machines” show. Now he creates these cool, whimsical coin-operated arcade machines.
This one was the only one portable enough to bring to Maker Faire, but some of his others include a dog walk simulator (in which both the user and the dog receive a point-of-view-based screen) and a vacation in chair experience (where the “player” receives the experience of an entire vacation in just a few minutes). Most of his machines incorporate his stop-motion filmmaking work.
Good stuff!
May 19th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Awwwsome! I loved Secret Life of Machines! I must have watched his TV bonfire a dozen times!
May 21st, 2007 at 11:29 am
If you’ve never seen the Secret Life of Machines, you’ve *really* missed something special. Not only is it informative, but Tim’s techniques are eccentric and hilarious. To demonstrate the oil in an engine is under pressure, he drives a chisel into the oil filter on a running engine and gets covered in oil! All with a straight face! Very creative and entertaining. Tim is a true Renaissance man.
You can download the series here:
http://sciencezero.4hv.org/tslom.htm
Tim’s website, where you can find Bittorrent links to the shows too:
http://www.timhunkin.com/control/n_tv_index.htm