Set it up so he can't fall more than a few inches and he could rollerblade / skateboard around a room with very low risk. This would be a one time thing, but a few hundred dollars could set this up for an afternoon.

Some physical therapy places have similar setups (Unweighing System) http://www.biodex.com/physical-medicine/products/pbws/unweig... which you could use more freely. Which you could buy if this was going to be a regular thing http://physicalenterprise.com/biodex-offset-unweighing-syste...

We actually have an unweighting device for another relative, which looks much like the picture. The one we have isn't suited for much beyond small physical therapy movements.

To speak clinically for a moment, the user experience should:

1. Convey the visual and emotional thrill of riding at high speeds through interesting terrain or cityscape.

2. Provide the most impressive initial experience, even if that reduces long-term playability, as it is not likely to see much continuous usage.

3. Be as easy and stationary as possible. The user is physically capable, but nine tenths of a century is well past the MTBF for standard issue human joints.

I've seen this with my own eyes, you need a rather high end physical therapy gym and it'll come with a physical therapist. And the bill will be like $$$/hr because insurance is willing to pay that much, although the therapist only gets $/hr because there's a large enough oversupply of trained therapists, the remainder going into profit.

I mostly saw kids using it. You can browbeat an adult in a wheelchair into "yeah you're gonna fall down and yeah its gonna hurt and the mats mean you won't die so toughen up and practice walking" but marine corps bootcamp motivational technique doesn't work well on little girls so I mostly saw them put wheelchair kids into the harness not adults or elderly.

Some problems:

1) Did not look terribly comfortable WRT "couple hours experience". More comfortable than falling onto a concrete floor every couple minutes but its no couch in front of a TV.

2) The physical therapy gym is full of exercise junk which doesn't matter if you're a little kid (re-)learning to walk but is a big deal if you're rollerblading at 30 mph and hit a squat rack or a wall head on. Or run into another patient.

3) Speed is not an issue for little kids (re-)learning to walk but the rig may not be built for rollerblade speeds.

4) Moving takes energy and stamina as you mention so being unable to be hurt doesn't mean the knees can tolerate it.

https://youtu.be/Git0feyYlf0?t=3m48s

Poor man solution without any special device - youtube 360

Youtube 360° Video Downhill Skateboarding VR | PEOPLE ARE AWESOME [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpjyW_xdDrY&list=PLU8wpH_Lfh...

Click, drag in video to control view point

I've seen the cardboard kits, and similar headsets, but I'd like to get the best experience, even if it does cost a little bit.

Rodney Mullen From 1984: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfpmO9cPGGY

https://www.viceland.com/en_us/video/aaron-homoki-goes-for-t...

Doesn't play for me. It's on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPEERI8Y25M

Your link kind of reminded me of this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL0rbxB9Lqg

A similarly incredible level of ability.

That video had me so anxious my palms got sweaty. I don't even get way when I watch skateboard videos (I skate) but I think it's just that video had so many perspectives that showed the height and I don't find that comfortable already.

For more info on VR, I recommend you to visit the VR subreddit, people there will help you out for sure; https://reddit.com/r/vive

Additionally, by far the "realest" VR headset out there is the Vive, because it allows you to move around in a room, which I think would be essential to a locomotive experience.

With regard to locomotion, that's an interesting variable. I should have described his relevant accessibility issues. The only relevant problems are corrective lenses and some limitation with locomotion, but far less than his age would suggest. He can walk, move, bend, and lift everyday objects without a problem, but athletic or rapid movements are out.

If you live in NYC, they are are available for testing at Google NYC Pop-up store [3].

(Disclaimer: I work at Google, but no connection to VR team)

[1] https://vr.google.com/daydream/headset/

[2] http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/gear-vr

[3] http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13346950/google-pop-up-sh...

1) It's available in pre-order today

2) It starts shipping in two weeks

3) You can test drive at many events or at pop-up store

Plus, as other mentioned, Samsung Gear VR exist for more than one year.

It's a different experience than Oculus/Vive, but definitely an option for OP's use case.

Thank you all for your time, your radical and innovative ideas, and most of all the outpouring of love and support.

Although this was not my goal, over the past twenty four hours I've received several contacts from people all over the country offering to loan or donate high-end VR gear, set up private demos for free, and even help with physical rehabilitation and assistance for the real thing.

We'll have to regretfully pass on that last one, due to my sister's rather unreasonable objections :)

We are going to attempt this at Christmas time, hopefully with the help of a few technically-inclined family members. If anyone else has any further suggestions, finds any good content, has some clever ideas, stray thoughts to bounce around, or even wants to help out please keep them coming. My email is seanrdurkin12 0x40 gmail.com for anyone that doesn't have it.

The results will be posted as a Show HN after Christmas, if my grandfather is comfortable with it, so keep an eye out if you're interested.

I hope someday we may we all look back at our lives with only one regret; and, if we are truly fortunate, a small army of hackers willing to make that final dream a reality. Even if that reality can only be virtual.

This experience has been truly amazing. It speaks volumes not only about the generosity of this community, but selflessness of all of you. Thank you for helping me to give a great man this chance to accomplish his last silly, wonderful, youthful wish.

> My grandfather is a veteran of World War II, a former FBI field agent who fought against organized crime, a father of four, a grandfather of nine, and not only the most honorable, but also the most consistently jovial person whom I have ever known.

That's book material right there, ten times over. Seriously. I'd read all about that, all day. I know wisdom and log fire chats and mentorship when I see it, and I think I see it here.

Recording and storage tech are unbelievably cheap nowadays. I would suggest finding audio and/or video recording systems to just get the information stored with a minimum of effort (whatever works: recorded conversations, solo dictation, etc). Maybe you could even play with speech to text (eh, maybe not).

Also, this photo I found online a while back immediately came to mind when I saw the post title. http://i.imgur.com/LzoOt27.jpg

Absolutely; I think everyone with living parents or grandparents should do this....even if you don't think they have particularly interesting stories to tell. When they're gone, it's too late.

Back in the 80s, as a high school assignment, I (audio) taped an interview with my great-uncle, who had been on the USS Liscome Bay (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liscome_Bay_(CVE-56)) when it was torpedoed during WW2. It was an interesting story, and I did well on the assignment, but put the tape in a box and forgot about it for a long, long time.

Some years back, I came across the tape and thought that I should convert it to MP3 while I still had the means. By this time, my great-uncle had been gone for a dozen years, and it was fantastic to hear his voice again. The real bonus was that my great aunt, who had passed twenty years prior, had been inadvertently captured talking on the tape.

So to feel the rush of falling and spinning in space strap a snowboard to your feet and go to a parachute training school (with the giant 100 HP air fan) and get levitated a bit.

Watch a couple videos so get some idea what is going on and what goes where when.

Hanging out with young people makes you feel young, go to the nicest park out there and check it out for an afternoon and watch and learn.

Experience wheels under your feel by attaching two fast/strong football wide receivers one to each shoulder and stick a board under your feet and just go down a sidewalk at 5 mph or however fast the football players can walk. Hey, I felt wheels under my feet and the clunk of going over sidewalk pavement joints and I can balance on a board. Sure there's two 250 pound football players holding me up but its kinda like the real thing.

Finally maybe analog ish VR. Find a FPV drone pilot who's a skater, get some time at a park (like when old people are awake and kids are asleep like 6am sunrise or five minutes after rain stops when its too wet to skate but drone is fine) and put the FPV video on him and tell the drone pilot to fly the course like he's skating it, at about eye height and about as fast as a skater.

However, I can't think of any VR skateboarding/rollerblading games. In your case I'd recommend finding someone who is willing to record a skating session with e.g. GoPro VR. For VR video you can go way under spec, I was driving videos on a DK2 with a 660Ti and a 2600k for reference. If you are searching for videos, make sure that they are stereoscopic - "360" doesn't mean VR.

VR sickness will be a concern with the movement, unavoidable, just remind him that closing his eyes will cut off the experience. Not everyone gets VR sickness, but it helps to prepare newcomers.

I'd also recommend:

* Universe Sandbox 2: http://universesandbox.com/ - works best with Vive.

* Apollo 11: http://store.steampowered.com/app/457860/

* The Night Cafe: http://store.steampowered.com/app/482390/ - free

* Destinations: http://store.steampowered.com/app/453170/ - free

For you:

* Elite: Dangerous: https://www.elitedangerous.com/

* The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR: http://store.steampowered.com/app/457880/

* Subnautica: http://store.steampowered.com/app/264710/

[1]: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=6135#...

https://www.amazon.com/Wii-Tony-Hawk-Skateboard-Bundle-Ninte...

https://www.amazon.com/Tony-Hawk-Shred-Bundle-Playstation-Sk...

Can he ride a bike? Has he ever, and can he still? How physically strong is he currently? Can he still lift himself out of a chair? If he's not very strong, perhaps you could sit with him on a long board and go down gentle slope, or start on a flat. Maybe take your sisters first and get their approval. A Razor skooter might be a good compromise - very easy to learn, but have the correct wind and the balance components. How much does he weigh? If you outweigh him by a good margin, you could both rollerblade, with him between your arms, and your arms under his, so you can be his training wheels. Again, obviously much caution with everyone's approval before you actually do this.

How 'bout a Big Wheel? If you get on a snow ski slope, there are other options; have you seen these bi-skis where a person sits and a person behind them stands and steers?

Of course, none of these preclude also going the VR route, though budget may. Just wanted to throw out some options possibly more inline with what he may have in mind.

Would you happen to have the name of that product, that's the sort of thing I think a lot of older people would be into, rather than games, etc.

Anyone on HN working in that space with some recommendations or to bounce some ideas?

Or this: https://www.hit-air.info/index.php/en/

http://immersivevreducation.com/the-apollo-11-experience/

That being said, the best tech out there currently is the Vive IMO, with the Rift likely tied once its touch controllers ship this December. Both have 6 degrees of freedom when tracking you. But right now the Vive is the only system that officially supports tracking your movement within a few square meters, and has motion controllers supported. That means within a room, you can walk around in both real life and the game world simultaneously and reach out and interact with the virtual world. The presence you get from that kind of experience is impossible to describe. Once the Rift's touch controllers ship the two systems will likely be on par with each other.

The mobile headsets all have 3DoF tracking. That means that the rotation of your head is tracked, but not its position in 3D space--taking a step forward in real life won't also move you a step forward in the virtual world, but the direction in which you look will be 1:1. You don't have as immersive experiences on them because of that, but for experiences where you're a passive/seated observer you can still get a VR experience for a tiny fraction of the price of a Vive/Rift + VR capable PC. Their performance depends on the quality of your phone.

For your grandfather I'd actually recommend he try and get a demo of the Vive or Rift on the floor of a PC store. Microsoft and Micro Center stores were both giving demos of them when the Vive debuted. That way you could gauge how much he enjoyed the experience and see if it's something you want to invest in for him in general. Maybe pick up a cardboard and find 360* skateboarding videos on Youtube just for him to experience it, if you were going to buy anything blind--that would be a ~$20 investment, and for those sports specifically you probably aren't going to find anything better on the high end systems.

This is obviously content-specific, it won't help at all in a 3D fpv shooter where taking your attention away for even a second or two means getting headshot, but it works well for "along for the ride" content (like roller coasters, sweeping landscapes, and presumably skateboarding or roller blading down Lombard St)

It's basically a trade-off: it is exchanging the skateboard or inline skating feel for something that is more real and independent.

It seemed incredible and I'm surprised I haven't seen more of it since. Anyone know what this is called?

I tried searching for "cable suspended cockpit", which netted me this immediately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJCsomGwdk0

I guess it might be too expensive for "fun" applications.

It's probably been offered to the military, but it looks kind of delicate so they likely turned it down. Besides that, I can't actually see anything viable for something like this; it's possible it wobbles slightly (since it's on cables), which would detract from the realism. (I've no idea if it does.)

Regarding fun, this isn't quite VR-specific, but I remember seeing something on TV a while back showing one of these at LEGOland, and it looks like this kind of thing is a lot more generally accessible everywhere: https://www.google.com/search?q=robot+arm+ride&tbm=vid

A Vive or Rift is probably the best bet, but I'm unaware of any skateboarding games built for them.

  (1) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/katvr/kat-walk-a-new-virtual-reality-locomotion-device

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dmourati/albums/72157632995685...

https://youtu.be/10Du25iIHNg

Half a dozen sessions later, pushing through "this is humiliating but I'm gonna do it anyway" was probably even more rewarding than learning to skate. I found Erin Ptacek's blog post "Be Coachable" about learning to skate resonated with me too:

https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/08/21/be-coachable/

You could see if you have a skate rink/park nearby with times when hardly anyone is there. The rink near me is almost empty during the daytime, except for a handful of hardcore geeks in their 30s - 50s who would probably fit into the HN crowd anyway.