Planet Arduino

While we’re still far away from returning to a pre-Corona everyday life, people seem to have accepted that toilet paper will neither magically cease to exist, nor become our new global currency. But back at the height of its madness, like most of us, [Jelle Vermandere] found himself in front of empty shelves, and the solution seemed obvious to him: creating a lifelike toilet paper chasing game in hopes to distract the competition.

Using Unity, [Jelle] created a game world of an empty supermarket, with the goal to chase after distribution tubes and collect toilet paper packs into a virtual cart. Inspired by the Wii Wheel, he imitated a shopping cart handle built from — as it appears — a sunshade pole that holds an Arduino and accelerometer in a 3D-printed case as game controller. For an even more realistic feel, he added a sound sensor to the controller, and competing carts to the game, which can be pushed out of the way by simply yelling loud enough. You can witness all of this delightful absurdity in his build video after the break.

But that’s not all. With the toilet paper situation sorted out, [Jelle] found himself in a different dilemma: a cloud foiled his plans of going for a bicycle ride. In the same manner, he ended up building a cycling racing game, once again with Unity and Arduino. From a 3D-scanned model of himself and his bicycle, to automatically generating tracks on the fly and teaching an AI to ride a bike, [Jelle] clearly doesn’t joke around while he’s joking around.

However, the best part about the game has to be the controller, which is his actual bicycle. Using a magnetic door sensor to detect the speed, and a potentiometer mounted with an obscure Lego construction to the handlebar, it’s at least on par with the shopping cart handle — but judge for yourself in another build video, also attached after the break. The only thing missing now is to level up the difficulty by powering the Arduino with the bicycle itself.

What is one to do when stuck indoors due to bad weather or other circumstances, without the ability to ride your beloved bicycle? If you’re game designer Jelle Vermandere, you build your own cycling simulator as seen in the clip below. 

Vermandere not only created a computer simulation in Unity, but a custom Arduino Uno rig that allows him to use his actual bike as the controller.

The game features procedurally-generated maps, along with competitors using Vermandere’s own likeness scanned in as the model. When the racing begins, wheel speeds are sensed via a magnetic window sensor and steering is handled by a LEGO potentiometer rig. 

The game (without its unique interface) is playable now on your browser, while code is available on GitHub.

What is one to do when stuck indoors due to bad weather or other circumstances, without the ability to ride your beloved bicycle? If you’re game designer Jelle Vermandere, you build your own cycling simulator as seen in the clip below. 

Vermandere not only created a computer simulation in Unity, but a custom Arduino Uno rig that allows him to use his actual bike as the controller.

The game features procedurally-generated maps, along with competitors using Vermandere’s own likeness scanned in as the model. When the racing begins, wheel speeds are sensed via a magnetic window sensor and steering is handled by a LEGO potentiometer rig. 

The game (without its unique interface) is playable now on your browser, while code is available on GitHub.

First the robots took our jobs, then they came for our video games. This dystopian future is brought to you by [Little French Kev] who designed this adorable 3D-printed robot arm to interface with an Xbox One controller joystick. He shows it off in the video after the break, controlling a ball-balancing physics demonstration written in Unity.

Hats off to him on the quality of the design. There are two parts that nestle the knob of the thumbstick from either side. He mates those pieces with each other using screws, firmly hugging the stick. Bearings are used at the joints for smooth action of the two servo motors that control the arm. The base of the robotic appendage is zip-tied to the controller itself.

The build targets experimentation with machine learning. Since the computer can control the arm via an Arduino, and the computer has access to metrics of what’s happening in the virtual environment, it’s a perfect for training a neural network. Are you thinking what we’re thinking? This is the beginning of hardware speed-running your favorite video games like [SethBling] did for Super Mario World half a decade ago. It will be more impressive since this would be done by automating the mechanical bit of the controller rather than operating purely in the software realm. You’ll just need to do your own hack to implement button control.

The first time I saw 3D modeling and 3D printing used practically was at a hack day event. We printed simple plastic struts to hold a couple of spring-loaded wires apart. Nothing revolutionary as far as parts go but it was the moment I realized the value of a printer.

Since then, I have used OpenSCAD because that is what I saw the first time but the intuitiveness of other programs led me to develop the OpenVectorKB which allowed the ubiquitous vectors in OpenSCAD to be changed at will while keeping the parametric qualities of the program, and even leveraging them.

All three values in a vector, X, Y, and Z, are modified by twisting encoder knobs. The device acts as a keyboard to

1. select the relevant value
2. replace it with an updated value
3. refresh the display
4. move the cursor back to the starting point

There is no software to install and it runs off a Teensy-LC so reprogramming it for other programs is possible in any program where rotary encoders may be useful. Additional modes include a mouse, arrow keys, Audacity editing controls, and VLC time searching.

Here’s an article in favor of OpenSCAD and here’s one against it. This article does a good job of explaining OpenSCAD.

[Editor’s note: This is a Hackaday writer’s hack, hence the “I” in place of the usual “we”. We all love custom peripherals though, and a good number of us love OpenSCAD, so you could probably read it either way, but we don’t want to take credit for [Brian]’s work.]

Riding your bike on winter roads can be tough sometimes. Riding your bike through a virtual reality is easier and surprisingly affordable!

Read more on MAKE

The post Pedal a Bike Through Virtual Reality for Under $100 appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Team Game is an interactive installation to reflect about video games and controllers made by Caroline Buttet. It runs on an Arduino Uno or Genuino Uno controlling a flex sensor, a custom made potentiometer, and a light sensor with the help of Unity software and Uniduino plugin:

It’s a simple game in which you need to roll a ball from one side to another of the screen. The trick is, you need some custom controllers to play. And you also need 2 partners that will play with you so that you can progress through the 3 levels. Rather than playing against the others, you will have to team up in order to win!

See the game in action described by Caroline:

Learn more about Uniduino plugin and how to use it with Arduino:

Released 25 years ago, the Nintendo Power Pad, a plastic mat that plugged into an NES, saw very limited success despite its prevalence in basements and attics. In total, only six games for the Power Pad were released in North America, and only 13 worldwide. The guys over at cyborgDino thought they should celebrate the sliver anniversary of the Power Pad by creating its 14th game, using an Arduino and a bit of playing around in Unity 3D.

The first order of business was to read the button inputs on the Power Pad. Like all NES peripherals, the Power Pad stores the state of its buttons in a shift register that can be easily read out with an Arduino. With a bit of help from the UnoJoy library, it was a relatively simple matter to make the Power Pad work as intended.

The video game cyborgDino created is called Axis. It’s a bit like a cross between Pong and a tower defense game; plant your feet on the right buttons, and a shield pops up, protecting your square in the middle of the screen from bouncing balls. It’s the 14th game ever created for the Power Pad, so that’s got to count for something.

Video of the game below.