The Falcon Has Landed

Novint turned to Lunar Design to transform a $20,000 engineering device into a $239 video game controller—with an eye on the medical training market

by Reena Jana

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Here's a trick question (or two): How do you design a consumer-electronics device that has no precedent in the marketplace? Say, a miniature robot that can be used by both players of entertainment PC games and doctors? In other words, a controller for on-screen simulations, from shoot-'em-up war scenes to surgical practice sessions.

And what if you're challenged to design this mini-robot so that it can also provide a sense of 3D touch and texture, such as moving through liquid or passing over bumps? Finally, what if your last task as a designer was to ensure that this ultra-sophisticated game controller could be made from materials and mechanisms so affordable that the device would cost approximately $200, qualifying it as a mass-market item?

This is exactly the challenge that the design team at Bay Area-based Lunar Design faced when creating the Falcon, a new type of haptic, or tactile, PC game controller that was released last week by Novint Technologies (NVNT), a maker of 3D touch products and a Lunar client.

In the past, Albuquerque-based Novint concentrated on developing similar technology for corporations such as Lockheed Martin (LMT), Chrysler (DCX), and Chevron (CVX) for training and research purposes. But the company was looking to make the technology available to consumer audiences and thus expand its market, according to Novint's founder and chief executive, Tom Anderson. So Anderson turned to Lunar Design for Novint's first foray into the world of gaming devices for a mass audience.

Innovative Portfolio

Lunar is one of the world's top design strategy firms—a frequent winner of the Industrial Design Excellence Awards—whose portfolio includes such innovative products as the Oral-B (PG) CrossAction toothbrush (with its novel criss-crossing, plaque-busting bristles) and the da Vinci Surgical System (featuring a uniquely ergonomic booth from which surgeons can manipulate remote robotic arms that control small surgical instruments within a patient's body, thus requiring minimal incisions and shorter recovery time).

And Jeff Salazar, Lunar's director of design, and his team have repeatedly taken on design briefs from some of the world's leading corporations, many in the personal computing market. In addition to Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), the maker of the da Vinci Surgical System, and Oral-B, the nearly 24-year-old firm has worked with corporations such as Apple (AAPL), on the first PowerBook design, and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), on the Pavilion family of home PCs. The firm's mix of experience with revolutionary new devices and its familiarity with the PC market appealed to Novint.

With the Novint Falcon, as with the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush and the da Vinci Surgical System, Lunar was "dealing with an object that isn't familiar. It's not an MP3 player," says Salazar, who with Lunar lead designer (and avid gamer) Alex Rochat led the team working on the Falcon. "We knew we were breaking new ground." Which, Salazar adds, meant that Lunar's designers faced a tough challenge, one more daunting than, say, simply redesigning existing objects.

Original Technology; New Price Tag

Novint's challenge for Lunar was to transform a high-end, industrial controller produced by Swiss company Force Dimension, from a $20,000 device used by scientists and engineers for technical training and research into a desktop version that would cost consumers only 1% of the original design. (The Falcon is currently being offered at an introductory price of $189 via online sales and will cost $239 when it hits stores in August.)