Nick Nieminen

Ballast Technologies - Underwater VR Headset

This headset brings the virtual world underwater for water park visitors. After expanding into new markets, Ballast found that their first generation product was in need of improvements for both user experience, and service staff operations. Our newly designed assembly included the latching flexure shown below which allows the front plate of the assembly to be closed and latched secured during use, but automatically pops open when the headset is docked on the wireless charger. The headsets must be opened during charging for heat dissipation, and to allow the service team to clean.

The off-the-shelf goggles were a difficult object to measure and reference, which made interfacing with them challenging. Many iterations of fit-check laser cut components allowed us to reach a close fit within a day of editing the model. This allowed us to quickly move on to modeling the final product components to mount the phone and address on-stand charging. This product required considerations in optics, user comfort, and heat, as the phone running VR inside this semi-sealed environment can be prone to overheating.