Guitar Hero actuator

posted Jun 11th 2008 4:00pm by Eliot
filed under: peripherals hacks

Another day, another EE that refuses to play Guitar Hero properly. [Julian Bleecker] went into the design of this Guitar Hero actuator not really knowing how to size solenoids properly. Luckily, trial and error can get you a long way. The first solenoids he purchased couldn’t apply enough force. The second was overkill. It was certainly strong enough but too heavy and too large to mount to the neck. The final set ended up being both the right size and working well even at 12V, half the design voltage. The elegant mounting system is what really makes this project shine. [Julian] provides the schematic for the ATmega168 driver board, which is an Arduino stripped of the extraneous bits.

Related: Slashbot and AutoGuitarHero

[via Make]

Comments [5]

tagged: autoguitarhero, controller, guitar, guitarhero, make, solenoid

5 Responses to Guitar Hero actuator

Mike says:

June 11, 2008 at 4:18 pm

So are we going to have guitar hero tournaments with humans versus robots? just like the old chess tournaments with humans versus computers.

Reply Report comment

Kevin says:

June 11, 2008 at 4:35 pm

Why does everything with an atmel chip need to be compared to an arduino?

Reply Report comment

Joe says:

June 11, 2008 at 5:52 pm

Maybe, instead of human v machines, the contest will be how quickly a human can assemble a machine to play Guitar Hero (and how accurately it plays).

In fact, to allow people from all over to compete, maybe someone could write an electronics simulator (like Eagle or somthing), so the competition is about design, as opposed to the quickness of assembly.

Of course, there would be some people who would cheat, by creating a piece of software or hardware to play the game for them.

Reply Report comment

jproach says:

June 11, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Looks like he went all out with the fancy gold solenoids.

kevin, I agree, I’ve been complaining about it for a while. Usually MAKE is worse, as they are clearly trying to pimp out their store items.