This could be the dawning of a new hackerspace sport. [Antoni Kaniowski] and [Rohit Sharma] came up with a delightful game of desktop golf. But the control scheme has a decidedly geeky flair. They’re using salvaged parts from an audio device and a hard drive to control the swing of the mechanical golfer just out of focus in the background of this image.
The game was built for a class project at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. Originally they wanted to have haptic feedback which would help you learn to tailor each shot for a perfect game. This proved to be impossible with the hardware they had on hand, but as you can see from the clip after the break the system still turned out just great. The audio slide which is taped to the underside of the table adjust the swing velocity. The hunk of hardware from an old hard drive acts the trigger for the swing.
The ‘hole’ is a laser cut ring of plywood. We’d love to see complicated courses designed in CAD and meticulously assembled for competition… but maybe we’re just getting carried away.
Wow, I’ve taken apart enough HDDs lately that I immediately recognized that as a head assembly… I’ve gotta see this! :3
Unfortunately they seem to not be taking it to it’s full potential, they should be able to read how much power the person put into the head assembly based off the voice coil there. Rather than having it as a slider under the table, would make it much more skill based than it is right now. At least that’s how it appears from the video (with no audio, at work right now).
Agreed. I thought that’s what it was doing until I saw the video.
Add me to this train of thought – I didn’t even bother opening the article because I thought I had it figured out from the picture and first paragraph. Turns out its just a lever button simile…
After looking at this, I’m now very interested in the idea of using HDD heads for a single-axis analog input, with force feedback…
As best I can tell from their description, they’re also using the coil to exert force to make it harder to push on it the higher the swing strength is set, sort of like a piece of exercise equipment with magnetic resistance.
What is in the club? Anyway I would try master-slave hookup of two head motors. No power, ‘duino, or pot. Flipping the master fast enough should be able to run the slave, if not amplify the pulse.