Making Fun: Mission Control Desk 

I'm 30 years old, but maybe Jeff could still adopt me and make me one as well?

And the winner of "Most Awesome Dad 2014" goes to Jeff High Smith.

I'm 19 and this looks fun as heck.

This would make a great console for KSP, especially when he's older and the two of you could make the necessary modifications together.

*Me working in an office *Boss: "Johnson, you finishing that report?" *Me: "Yes sir" *Pulls up control panel: "Houston, we have a problem..."

Now make one for Kerbal Space Program.

This just screams Kerbal Space Program. If you could interface with that, infinite possibilities.

This guy is amazing! How great would this world be with more guys like him! Outstanding job!

Teacher: Why haven't you done your homework? Boy: I was kind of busy flying to the moon and back.

Okay, that's it. Pack your shit up and go home, other Dads. Dad of the century right here.

This is possibly the best toy a kid could ever get. Its incredible.

Holey moley, that is fantastic!! When I was seven, I made a control panel with glue, cardboard, and buttons, and labeled the "controls" with a black permanent marker. That was maker tech to me, lol!

you SIR are probably the BEST DAD on the planet earth right now.. you should feel proud of that

Dad of the year for sure :)

what a lovely project, a labour of love. In years to come, say 30 years from now, your lad wont remember much of the details of it, except for one thing... his Daddy loved him.

That's amazing! That's one way to get interested in space exploration at a young age. I like how you incorporated what happened in Apollo 12 and 13.

This would have blown my mind as a child. It's fantastic!

Pack it up other dads its game over this guy just won for years to come.

You wrote like an entire program, borderline game, and did some serious soldering and constructing. I'm truly amazed.

This project is simply amazing! Back in the days when when I was ~12 years old, I spent weeks building [what I then considered] an epic DIY mission control panel for myself - with a lots of switches and incandescent micro-bulb indicators, and even some barebone basic level analog logic behind it (e.g. three "pump control" lights had to be turned on for the "master pump" light to turn on, etc.). Burned my fingers so many times while soldering all those wires, but I was so proud about what I have made. But this - this is something I couldn't even have dreamed about those 25+ years ago... Great job!

That's an incredible desk! Definitely a one of a kind desk that's sure to fulfill a little fellows love of NASA and space and fuel a lot of dreams! Way to go!

Wow, you are the #1 dad. You're making it hard for the rest of us.

I am a 34 years old engineer and would love to play with that panel. What an awesome and cool dad!

Ok, you win. You're the best dad in the world. You sure would be in my book. I'm 53, and grew up with vintage space, and it's one of the coolest toys I've ever seen, and it's hand made to boot. Impressive build.

WOW! I don't even know what to say.....this is freaking amazing. You are an awsome dad to pull this off for your kid(s). This has given me so many ideas. Although my daughter is in her teens now. Maybe it will be more for me. Would be awsome to use a set up like this to run a home automation system. The Apollo 13 audio wired into the tank stir is priceless!!! You have my vote for dad of the year.

I love how creative this dad is!!!

The the first Dad of the century award goes to THIS GUY AND ALWAYS WILL BE

Oh my gosh...It's like looking into the future for when I have kids. Accept no joke, when I have kids, one of my life goals is to make a life size and accurate as possible Lunar Module in my backyard, lol. This gave me a whole new world of ideas and possibilities to add to it, now there will be lights and sounds and interaction besides walls of buttons and switches, lol.

Dad of the century. Thanks for making me feel super inadequate. Wow!

OH. MY. GOD. I didn't expect that level of awesome at all.

Coworker: "Hey, cute mug... did your kid give that for you for Christmas or something?" Dad: "Oh this? No, I won it at the 'World's Greatest Dad" award ceremony this year. I have a cupboard at home full of them."

This is... Incredibly, incredibly gorgeous. A lot of care and craft went into this, and although this video is quite old, I hope it's still seeing good use!! It's stuff like this that inspires people to grow :)

My ten year old inner child just called. He wants one.

I made my daughter a bed for her Barbies... now I feel like the world's worst dad...

No matter the age, a man would still love this, that is why, you should make one for me, in all serious, it's a great build!

50 years ago, my father made me a radar screen, made out with an old record turntable shining a rotating slit through a marked green frosted glass, along with some fake switches and blinkenlights and controls, as well as a crystal radio with headphones. It’s amazing how technology has progressed in 50 years… :)

I've seen lots of cool things but this. is. just. plain. cool.

The dad of the year award goes to....

This is so cool!!! I work in the aircraft industry, MH 60 helicopters ,MH 47 and little bird, and you almost made the panels look like the line replaceable units in the helicopters (LRU). Very nice job. You only needed handles on the sides edges of the modules to make them look like there replaceable.

Wow, this might be an older video but I just had to leave a comment! Great Job on this, sparking your son's creativity, imagination and interest in space and science fields with this is just awesome parenting on your part. Congrats on taking the time to do this for your kid. Respect!

You are the coolest dad ever!

Well my dad taught me how to build a snow fort so ha

**MADE** !!! Most Awesome Dad Ever! I hope the little guy appreciates the effort his dad put in on this project.

This is so perfect. I love the real world failures and alarms. Even when master bus B lost power during the Apollo 13 failure. Good detail. I would love to see your kid play KSP, seems right up his alley. Great job!

Best Dad EVER!

I am impressed beyond words! February and the title Most Awesome toy/Mission Control are taken.

No matter how old you are, nothing beats the thrill of a bank of Toggle-Switches! BRAVO. 🎯🚀👏👏👏👏

My dad built me a plywood spaceship when I was a kid -- this brought back a lot of memories!! Thanks, and great work!

I'm 52 & I want one please. :) Love from Scotland 5*

You could use the phone intercom so you can talk to your son through the desk and his headset ;)

I can just see his next video, "My son got bored of playing... so I built him a real spaceship!" Why do I get the feeling your son will be the first man on Mars? Fantastic build.

Definitely a contender for a coolest dad in history award :) Hell, I'm 26 and I think this looks strangely fun and satisfying...

You, sir, are a cool dad. :)

You should have hooked some of those switches and buttons up to things in his room like lights and fans and clocks and stuff like that.

Wow I think this kid is getting a job with Nasa. Great job. Can't believe how much work it put into it. Especially the sounds and videos connected to the switches. Magnificent is all I can say. Making some sci-fi videos in the coming future and wish you were working with me. Take care and happy spacing....

That is the coolest thing I've ever seen a Dad build for a child. Bravo!

World's best dad.

Interface with kerbal space program

I'm 29 and would happily play with this like a kid for hours. One thing I'd do differently though - I'd use incandescent indicator lamps instead of LED's.

I've watched this video several times and it always impressed me. I would love to know how things worked out with it after 10 years.

If I was making this for a child of the same age, by the time I had finished he probably be in his 40's

Dad of the year.. No guessing what this kid wants to be when he's old enough :)

Your kid does not know how amazing this is.

This is pretty freaking awesome. After seeing everything that went into making it I feel greedy and want more, bigger. louder, more screens and what ever else this guy can imagine. Very well done. I liked this video and will share it. I'm not against those that disliked the video they are free to choose, but I wonder why they would dislike this video. What more could they want?!

This is a recipe for procrastination :) Great job though! Amazing work.

Very nice. You should sell them. I'm 50 and would gladly take one!

You are one great father. Happy to see fellow geek dads out there.

In awe of the ability of folks. And envious I must admit. Bravo.

Imagine this tied into a PC as a controller for KSP.

This whole video is like a set of IKEA instructions.

Wow that is a great design. When our granddaughter was born built a toddler activity box for her with a mix of electronics and other stuff. In a few years you son ought to be able to help you build and code new projects.

Amazing project - even in 2022! Tnx for sharing and bringing a big smile to my face 👏😎

Please tell me you'll make this interface with Kerbal Space Program eventually

Now interface that with Kerbal and I think you'll have a TRUE control desk.

Really like the panel! Always thought I'd like to build a control panel of some kind, but never sure how it would look or how to build it. You've given me some great ideas. THANK YOU for sharing!!

You deserve the Coolest Dad of the Year Award!

I'm 46, but if you'd like to adopt me, I'd be fine with that.

And the "Geeky father of the year award" goes to.... ;) But seriously, even if you did build this more for yourself than your kid, it's still the most awesome thing I've seen. I wish more dads were this awesome, mine included.

I'm in my 50's and some friends and I want to make a retro sci fi film that looks like the films and TV shows we grew up with when we were kids. This is some good ideas. We are all good at building miniatures pre Star Wars. Also good at building film sets. But the fit out has us boggled. So your advice regarding printing on clear and placing in toggle switches etc. Is really good to know. We are adding some reel to reel computers. But I sure learnt something watching this. Glad I stumbled on it.

You are one Awesome Dad... Cant wait to see your version of the Space Capsule...

I was almost disappointed early on in the build, because he didn't men tion there were actual computers involved at first. I thought it was just going to be a fancy toy with lights and potentiometers and the like. That would have been pretty cool, but not really worth of Make, in my opinion. Then he got to the part with the RPi and the Arduino and he immediately became the coolest dad that has ever lived.

he missed the cigarette lighter

Dad of the year award goes to this guy

I... I need to build this and figure out how to interface it as a controller with Kerbal Space Program... On a serious note, holy shit what a lucky kid. You are the most awesome dad in the universe. Keep it up, your son will be a great engineer some day.

You are a great father.

Even if I'm way too old, I WANT IT TOO!!!

Dude, that is amazing, even 7 years later.

You have made what i have been planning in my head for my 3 yr old. THANK YOU! I'm grabbing all these resources for the future build.

BEST. DAD. EVER.

This is great but, and I don't mean ANY criticism, I actually built a remotely controlled rocket ship for my daughter (don't have a son), with a narrow beamed, auto targeting, local display TV receiver (the rocket has a camera of course) with close to a half hour flight time and capability of reaching close to a 17 mile altitude (if she wanted guided retrieval) or a potential 40+ mile altitude if she'd be willing to possibly lose its tracking (done by a home made radar system that she can control, though I usually accompany her on that one). I really like this project and, for his age, it's probably perfect. My daughter is older.

I always find myself coming back to this video every month or so just because it's so cool 😂

Dude that looks better than most electronic enclosures! Forget the kid, us adults would love something like that too lol

All I can really muster is "WOW"!

Now I wish that my dad did stuff for me like that when I was little...

Quite impressive, I like the way you put them all together. If you program a few scenarios so that the displays and buttons actually do matter in how and when they get pressed then you got yourself a home-made simulator.

All you need now is some sort of simulator closed dark room with large displays. This is AWESOME

This is so amazing! This makes me want to build a TARDIS console with my computer embedded in it. And maybe actually control other things in my house O_o

This needs to be used with Kerbal Space Program.

Good work Dad! I tried to build one myself when I was a kid (back in the 60's) but my parents caught me trying to fit the fairy lights into my desk and freaked out. You should get your kid a PC and get Kerbal Space Program for your spacecraft (and learn about space navigation too). You could then learn how to interface the panel to the game (as it is heavily mod friendly).

I clicked skeptical on this video like "Does this have any functions or is it just another flashing thing that is just for decoration?" and I have to admit it blew my mind!