So I had another look at the design and also played around with a simple triangle idea to create the chair base and arm rests inside the sphere.

Its probably not necessary to try to cut the part list to the bare bones but still a good exercise. One of the major mistakes I think a lot of Kickstarted projects make is to start thinking that since they raised 500% of their goal they should now start to redesign the whole project with all this extra capital. It’s far better to deliver what they promised first with some minor improvements and use the extra cash towards the next version, rather than fail to deliver anything. The Oculus Rift DK1 was not what they really promised, but they at least delivered something pretty close and that moved the company forward. Imagine if they had tried to create the DK2 instead…. they would probably have just failed completely.

So the major components now number just 10…. this doesn’t include nuts, bolts and other off the shelf items such as motors,   omniwheels or a seat. Two required small metal parts could probably be found in mcmaster-carr, I just haven’t looked. The rim is matter of bending two aluminium extrusions, cutting to length and drilling in the right places. The base triangles can be laser cut or made quite simply in a carpentry place (assuming they’re made from wood). I’m not sure the turnbuckles are classed as manufactured components either since I could probably order 100k of them from Alibaba quite simply….. 9 parts then? :p

So, pentagon, half hexagon, the connector to hold them all together and the base panel…. 4 tricky parts…. plus the electronics and code.