I first started learning about design in high school, where we were tasked to find and identify problems with everyday products. We would have to design our own original solutions for them, and the first software we were taught with was Sketchup. At the time our school had access to a couple of 3D printers for us to produce our solutions. My solution was a threaded earphone tip that screwed on to the earphone’s can, so the tip wouldn’t come off accidentally and get lost.

I started to get into the RC Crawling world in 2012 just about when the original SCX10 came out. Got my first SCX10 rig and crawled, broke parts, and upgraded. Money was always a problem for buying upgrades, I dreamed of designing upgraded parts and fabricating them myself to save costs. Also, the market didn’t have a lot of scale accessories then, but they were certainly attractive so I started buying and collecting them to mount onto my crawler.

Over the years I honed in on my Sketchup skills to explore how these accessories were designed, I didn’t have a 3D printer at the time so I fabricated the designs out of thin aluminium sheets. The limitation was, there was only so much detail possible with aluminium sheets. But I didn't stop designing as my goal back then was to do enough designing to make a 3D printer worth buying. In 2017 I finally got my first filament 3D printer. It was a Creality CR-10.

That was when my designing interests had gone next level. At this stage I was already “pretty good” with Sketchup. Starting my own business was also what I had in mind, and I liked the freedom designing had brought. Nevertheless, my fleet of crawlers grew quite massively and I could finally make upgrades and more complex accessories for them.

This was about the time I was introduced to “Sim Racing” and it really got me hooked. All the expensive gear people dreamed of having, why not produce my own? I knew how to design and I could print things. So I did. Which my entire Sim Racing scene would eventually in a few years turn into my other business, “Sim Ahead”.

More designing, printing and growing for 3 more years and it was 2020. I wanted to be able to design complex things easier. Sketchup was no longer good enough for what I wanted to do. I needed a design software that could create solids better and have a simpler and more logical UI. Enter Fusion 360. I had sort of stumbled upon it during electrical and electronics design class in university. At the same time I needed a more reliable workhorse filament printer to prototype my Sim Racing equipment and RC accessories. So I bought my second filament printer. The Raise 3D E2. I officially switched over to Fusion 360 because it was just much better at creating solids, this was when progress really ramped up fast, again.

I was able to prototype and create final products with the new printer. A few months later Sim Ahead was launched. With the business going I started to dive deeper into RC accessories even more and decided I wanted to provide a fresh plethora of options to the RC market. This was when I got my resin printer, it could print in serious detail that filament printers couldn’t even dream of. The RC accessories designing took on a new level with much more detail and precision. The goal to always be as realistic as possible. The aim for this new business at launch was to design 30 accessories, they had to be different to what the market had to offer.

Fast forward a couple more months of planning, designing and testing, "Ahead RC" was finally launched with bright dreams and a fresh spirit. Next phases will focus on even more specific events and activities of off roading and expeditions. Accessories that are very unique and situational to these activities. The ultimate end-goal is to provide a super market like experience for customers where there will be RC accessories for everybody, and for every RC crawler rig out there.

Ian Jim

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