In this project, we adopted innovative sensors and technologies to produce a concept for a new game controller. While doing that we considered the behavior of the thing that the user will see, hear, or feel, and picked specific sensor to create that kind of behavior.
First of all, we have chosen a game to develop a new controller. Then we started to build up our project according to following steps.
Game Analysis
Pong is a two-dimensional sports game that simulates table tennis. It is one of the earliest arcade video games and the first game developed by Atari (29 November 1972). It is usually played by children but appeals to every audience.The player controls an in-game paddle by moving it vertically across the left side of the screen and can compete against either a computer-controlled opponent or another player controlling the second paddle on the opposing side. Players use the paddles to hit a ball back and forth. The aim is for each player to make one fails to return the ball to the other.
Brief
What if..
We could play pong game in a more physically logical way? The answer was replicating original motion by using a slider.
We could play pong game in a more physically logical way? The answer was replicating original motion by using a slider.
What will a person see/hear/touch?
Players will see two sliders with a screen placed between them.
How is the device inviting interaction?
There is a handle on the slider and player slides it in order to play.
How is the device answering to the interaction?
As the player moves handle, the paddle in the game follows the same pattern with it.
Players will see two sliders with a screen placed between them.
How is the device inviting interaction?
There is a handle on the slider and player slides it in order to play.
How is the device answering to the interaction?
As the player moves handle, the paddle in the game follows the same pattern with it.
Sketches
We used two ultrasonic distance sensor to make processing sees the overall field as the player’s motion area. When the paddle come close to one edge, the paddle on the screen goes to the bottom. In order to achieve a single solid result, we extracted one value from another according to which sensor closer to the paddle. We decided to use two sensors because it would make it more stable but it ended up using only one value.
Prototyping
Since it was a 3-day project after finding the idea, we immediately went through the prototyping stage. We chose cardboards which are one of the fastest materials to use in this phase. After a little research, we decided to use drawer rails as sliders. As a result, we were able to make a slider system.
Arduino Phase
Firstly we put together the materials that needed to make the circuit. The materials are;
1 Arduino UNO, 1 mini breadboard, 2 ultrasonic distance sensor and a bunch of jumpers ( M&M, F&F, and M&F).
After gathering all the materials it is time to coding! We used regular distance sensor code for this project but for multiple sensors. You can see the Arduino code; Here
With our coding and circuit done, we worked on our second prototype.
You can also see our Arduino circuit; Here
Processing Phase
In this phase, we used the Arduino values to make paddles move. Luckily, anyone can easily find open source processing codes to use. We found a simple pong game code and adapted it to our console. We just used Arduino values to map out the player's movement area. Here is our final processing code; Here
Final Design
At the end of the whole process, it was time to design the final console. The intention was to make it all in one and simple so that people can play and enjoy the parties and the family reunions. So we decided to put a screen between two consoles so it becomes a real party console. For the final craft, we used wood as a natural material. Since it was very solid at the end we decided to remove mechanical slider inside the console as well.
