GO FILM YOURSELF: INTERVIEW WITH ROBOTICS ENGINEER MICHIEL GOOSSENS

Photos courtesy Michiel Goossens

WORDS: Stu Gomez

There’s a skater in Ghent, Belgium, who is taking DIY to the next level. Over the next year and a half, engineer Michiel Goossens will be filming a selfie skate part using robotic tools he’s built himself. The one-of-a-kind video, “Skatetronica,” combines engineering ingenuity and art, and just might be the most striking example of skateboarding’s reputation for innovation.

We talked with the 28-year-old Goossens about Robotcam, The Coping Train, and his process for building a better robot.

I studied software engineering for 1 year. After my studies I had a job at a company that makes software for hospitals. But the biggest part I learned through research on the internet. I made small Arduino projects to learn about electronics, sensors, motors, etc. (Arduino is a microcontroller designed for hobbyists and artists.)

Mechatronics is engineering of both electrical and mechanical systems. It’s a combination of robotics, electronics, mechanics, software systems, and telecommunication. As a child I was always making these “robots” with Lego. I had a set of Star Wars from Lego Technic and it included a motor with a light sensor. In high school I studied art, so that was something totally different. But I was always interested in creating stuff.

After high school I learned about Arduino and it made my interests in robotics grow again. Because I was also making mechanical devices I was searching for a comprehensive term, then I found out about mechatronics.

Most of the time I just work on the go. I have an idea and I try to build a prototype of it. With electronic devices I can test a lot inside, but sometimes I really need an obstacle to test it on. While I am testing, I try to figure out what could be improved and I write it down. Then I go back home and make the changes on the prototype. I do this over and over again until I got a working prototype.

I think selfie camera devices or selfie filming devices is a good way to refer to my builds. I started naming every device that I made, because otherwise it was hard to talk about it!

It really depends on what I am building. With every device that I build I still need to learn some skills and techniques. The first two devices (Robotcam and The Coping Train) together took me around 3 months. For Robotcam, I needed to do a lot of research about telecommunication while The Coping Train was a device I constantly needed to test and improve.

Yes. I think a selfie part is a good way to describe what I want to do; I never filmed a part before.

In 2019 I will mainly be focusing on building a couple of new devices and adjusting them on the spots where I want to film. I will also keep practicing my skateboarding and learning new tricks. I started skateboarding 2 and a half years ago, when I just turned 26 years old, so I will try to keep the tricks quite simple. I calculated that I will be finished building everything by spring 2020. Then I have 6 months left to film everything and edit the video.

I did see an instagram post of Chris Cole using a GoPro ["The Loneliest Number"] that he attached on a skateboard so he could film himself. That was actually the first time I thought about making that kind of device. I also watch skate parts to see how skateboard tricks are filmed and I try to keep that in mind while designing everything.

For electronic engineering I would recommend to check out Arduino, because it’s quite easy to use and you’ll find a lot of information about it. But the most important thing is to be really creative. There are a lot of different ways to make your camera move, from using motors to using the momentum of your skateboard to perhaps using the wind. I think the best research for this is simply to try things out.