Head-Tracking NES Water Blaster Is Good Summer Fun

Super Soakers were great fun back in the day, but adults tend to get tired of the manual labour of pumping pretty quickly. [Sean] decided to build something a touch more modern, coming up with this head-tracking water blaster.

The water spray tracks the movement of the wearer’s head. With a camera mounted on the nozzle, this allows the user to simply look to designate targets. Similar technology is used in military fighter jets.

To eliminate pumping, the build instead enlists the services of an electric pump, powered by a 12 V battery. Pushing water through a tube into a 3D printed nozzle, it provides a fat stream of water with around 5 meters range, with little effort from the user. The nozzle is fitted into a NES Zapper, and attached to a servo pan-tilt platform. The camera is mounted on the water gun, and hooked up to a set of Fat Shark FPV goggles with an IMU unit. When the user looks around, the water gun moves in sync with their head movements. This allows for the user to look at targets to hit them with the water stream, a very intuitive method of aiming.

It’s a fun build that’s perfect for the summer, and an easy one to recreate for anyone with some spare servos and FPV gear. Of course, with a little face-tracking software, it would be easy to hit targets automatically. Video after the break.

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