Tokyo OpenSky 2.0

Post by WMMNA

ICC in Tokyo is currently running an exhibition called OpenSky2.0, which showcases various artifacts relevant to Kazuhiko Hachiya’s ambitious ongoing project with its ultimate goal of developing a personal “flying machine.”

Hachiya’s previous works include Inter Dis-Communication Machine, Seeing Is Believing, AirBoard (a jet-powered skateboard) — to name a few. He’s also the creator of PostPet, a popular email client application in which Kawaii digital pets take care of email messages.

The sky so far seems to be a “closed” space in which “end-users”
cannot easily participate in. Imagine an “open” sky in which anyone can
fly freely — it would be so nice — but making it actually happen
would be extremely difficult. The OpenSky project started in 2003 and,
so far, a flying machine was designed, a half-size radio-controlled
prototype was built, a full-size aircraft was built and tested. It is
being integrated with jet engines and the plan is to test the next
version of the flying machine with a person on board. The exhibition
will last till March 11.