Force Feedback Rig

Strap yourself in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. No really, if you don’t believe us, check out the video after the break of this bouncing and rolling game system. [Shawn McGrath] built it to compliment the gaming experience for Dyad, an indie game for which he is a developer. His wife was kind enough to demonstrate the machine, which utilizes one motor to rotate the display and cockpit, and another to add vibration to the experience. The parts for the system were mostly salvaged, with the addition of a projector for the display and a PlayStation SixAxis controller to sense the motion of the rig. The motors are powered by a 600W computer PSU and controlled by an Arduino. It helps that [Shawn’s] a developer because he was able to add feedback hooks to sync with the gameplay.

It’s not as intricate as the best flight simulators we’ve seen, but it will be fun for that next kegger.

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/20277439 w=470]

Demonstration starts about 1 minute into the video.

13 thoughts on “Force Feedback Rig

  1. compl[e]ment, not compl[i]ment

    Also, homemade motion simulators rock, even if they aren’t “NASA grade,” and this is no exception. Excellent work.

    A few observations:

    You couldn’t iron the bed-sheet before making the screen? :P And it shakes a lot, too; maybe a “stretcher” frame like painting canvas is mounted on is in order?

    The vibration motor is unnecessarily loud, methinks.

    Couldn’t this be done without the source code by intercepting the joystick signals?

    A cool (but possible difficult to add) feature would be something (heavy solenoid?) that gives a sharp, forward “push” to the chair when you hit a “boost pad”. It would give a very realistic simulation of acceleration.

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