Willie Winkler

A peek under the hood

I was just rebuilding prototype four in order to test something. I realised it would be good to show you some of the insides. This isn't the latest thinking for the drive mechanism and we now don't think the computer needs to me spinning with you due to the recent advancements with wireless headsets, but it does show how we've managed orientation changes in the past.

The Awesome Award is ours

We've had an amazing show at Awe 2023. Loads of great contacts and conversations and we won one of the show's prestigious awards. I think it's fair to say the EXIT SUIT has been well received. It'll be a couple of weeks processing all the leads but there's lots of exciting stuff being talked about. 

We threw caution to the wind and let people get into the suit and try it out. We got over seventy people through it before it finally broke just an hour before the show closed. (Snapped...

The unseen EXIT SUIT prototype video

Thought you might be interested to see the first video I ever shot of the suit. It's prototype three, with the first working disk brake on the knee joint. Leg skin obviously isn't working very well but it's great when it rolls up like an armadillo You get to see one end of my workshop.

I'm currently in California. The show starts on thursday and I've still got to finish the suit but fingers crossed. I've been trying to record the process (for Golden Ticket instructions) so I'll share an...

Room Invite: E1635F

Please join me in the office where we've been developing the suit for a chance to meet and chat. Population One

Invitation to say hello...

I'm going to be in the suit at eight o'clock (London time) this evening, testing a Population One environment I'm hoping to use during the show next week. It's not really finished but it'll be good to catch up with you. I'm thinking I'll also invite the Golden Ticket holders. Thumbs me if you're going to try and make it...

I'll send a room invite when I go in... stay tuned

Getting ready for Awe

Hello Patreons,

We are flying out to Santa Clara on Friday and getting everything ready for the trip. We'll be building a suit in the local maker space MakerNexus. Super excited about the show but got to admit, daunted by the task. 

I think it's important we try and get as many industry people in the suit as possible. This is a little worrying as the design is still a prototype, plus anything you strap yourself into and move in unusual ways could cause injury, so we need to b...

A different way to communicate

I thought I'd try and talk direct to you. Let me know if you prefer it or the text updates.

I'm currently working on revisions to the leather 'skin' of the EXIT SUIT. The Awe 2023 show in Santa Clara will have more bungee cord and a wrap around velcro vest so different sized people can get in. 

I've spent quite a lot of the long weekend scrabbling about on my knees on the floor at home. Nearly ready to start cutting the leather but just one question...

22 Golden Tickets underway

Quick update on where we are at. We're still getting applications in for Golden Tickets. Gave another out this morning which makes 22 now. There are a few Golden Ticket holders in here as Patreon supporters too. Wicked.

I've asked everyone making a suit to keep a low profile with it for a few weeks, so we can make more of an impression when they all get shown together.

Everyone has been given spine 6 drawings in their sizes.

We've accepted our free space at Awe 2023 at the e...

Eighteen Golden Ticket holders around the world

We've selected eighteen Golden Ticket holders. There is a discord channel. I'm going to ask them to keep quiet about what they're doing for a few weeks and there'll be a big splurge with some other surprises later. I'll be keeping you up to date on it all on here.

Licence decided

The EXIT SUIT will carry the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode

Exit into Awe, USA

Hello all, EXIT SUIT have been invited to come to AWE, a show for all things XR related at the end of May in California. We're thinking we should come. It will mean getting the plywood components for the suit made up over there and assembling it when we arrive. We'll probably only manage to do this with the basic suit as adding force feedback will require much moreAnyone in the San Fransisco area who might want to come along? 

Morning Patreons

Just a quick catch up with where things are going. We've launched the Golden Tickets now and there's 100 individuals and twenty Universities so far expressed an interest. I'm going to keep the round open for a while longer. The first tickets will go out today I hope.

I don't think anyone noticed what the 'Golden Tickets' graphic did.

We've been offered a free space at the AWE show in Santa Clara. It would be great to show the suit there and meet some industry people. International...

Golden Tickets Launch

I've drawn a little graphic for the Golden Tickets. Can you see what it does? 

I'll be posting this on Insta in a mo to call the official start of the Golden Ticket process. Emails will go out to those signed up on the exitsuit.com mailchimp directly. There's already quite a few wanting to build the first suits and there are several universities interested. It's more than I'd thought might.

I guess this is the start then.

Sign up. Patreons will get the first numbered Ti...

So you've seen it first...

Golden Tickets Release info (Released on Discord first then social media channels)

The first permissions and instructions to build the EXIT SUIT will be called Golden Tickets.

If you would like to build an EXIT SUIT you must fill in your details on our website (exitsuit.com) to be contacted about a Golden Ticket. 

Your application will provide us your measurements and impress us with your attitude and making. You will need to agree to our conditions. Go...

Golden Tickets update

Hello Patrons,

Here’s a little update about the EXIT SUIT and the release of the Golden Tickets.

As the suit is still a working prototype, we do not feel it is ready for a general open-source release quite yet. If we did, there would be a chaos of badly made, unfinished suits and grumpy people. As a result the project will suffer. The Golden Ticket system aims to encourage only competent makers and University departments to build the first suits. We hope to grow an international...

Website gone live

Hello all Patreons. My lovely wife has just got the website live. https://exitsuit.com/

This is only a temporary site to start collecting emails from interested people. There's a button to link people to the discord server (but the link has gone out of date and needs updating before I add the site address to the social cannel bios).

GitHub up

Zak has loaded the code linking the EXIT SUIT with Unity, onto GitHub

I'm going to get it onto Discord a bit later.

I'm also trying to create a Patreon link to discord so We can have our oun channel and so we can move between platforms. Just fighting with the bots first 

https://github.com/willie-winkler/EXIT-SUIT

Rewards

Hello all, I was asked about rewards for my patrons and I had to admit I hadn't thought enough about this. While I hope you're here because you want to support the development and delivery of this project, I do realise it's usual to also have some treats for you.

Firstly, I'm going to try and keep up regular communication with you all. I will be sharing ideas and getting your feedback before things get presented to the wider community.

Second, I'm planning on numbering all Golden ...

First chance to meet up

No sure if any of you are going to try and join me in Population One this afternoon. For those that are you could try my friend invite link in game: 

453W-Y4FL-25F4-L or you could find me by name WillibumWinkler

I've also just published a sandbox room in there called EXIT PLAYGROUND where we can hang out. I'll host a room and invite you in once we've friended.

I'll get into game at 3:50 GMT (35 mins) 

Hope to see some of you in there.

Willie

Welcome and massive thanks for getting involved

Hello all new Patrons. It's great to have you involved. I hadn't thought of starting a Patreon page until it was suggested by someone in a comment.

Things have switched up a gear since Thrill's video came out a week ago. It's great to have some recognition for all the work we've been doing in the last three years. It's been an incredibly exciting project to develop and we thought we had made something pretty groundbreaking. The three months of silence since we first posted videos of it ...