Can you believe that [Tom Tilley]’s wife was just going to pawn off this perfectly good salad spinner on the thrift store when it’s so ripe for hacking? We couldn’t, either. Fortunately, he caught it just in time, right before dinner.
One of the coolest things a person can do that also tends to aid gameplay is to make a custom controller. [Tom] decided to make one for Bust-A-Move, a simple game where one shoots balls at bubbles in order to pop them. It looks like quite the fun little stress reducer. Anyway, a simple game deserves a simple controller, no? Yes.
As you’ll see in the build/demo video below, [Tom] started with a standard wireless mouse and hot-glued a cardboard origami creation to it. This goes upside-down inside the salad spinner and gets connected to the spinner part so that the entire origami moves in a circle. [Tom] then extended the left mouse button to a switch, which he affixed to the outside.
This controller re-uses a slightly modified mouse that [Tom] used in a previous Bust-A-Move controller. He is using a FreePIE script and vJoy in order to map mouse movements to the joystick inputs expected by the game. Watch [Tom] bust some moves after the break.
One could also 3D print or fab up a small testube/vial holder to go inside a salad spinner to make a home lab centrifuge for small samples.
that is an excellent way to make a simple low-speed centrifuge, and not just for home labs (PCR for genetic work is one of the really common applications – see https://bitesizebio.com/3200/how-to-build-a-plate-centrifuge/). There’s even a scientific paper that suggests that a hand-cranked salad spinner outperforms a similar electric lab centrifuge in several key ways (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32466310/)
There’s also this design from 13 years ago, intended to help doctors provide blood tests in areas where it wouldn’t otherwise be possible due to cost or lack of infrastructure; I couldn’t find any information about whether it actually caught on, but it at least works as a proof of concept. (https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-to-turn-a-salad-spinner-into-a-medical-centrifuge-for-30)
(the article’s project is pretty cool too – a true “hack” that is elegant in its simplicity of construction and repurposing of existing objects. and it’s not like there’s a shortage of salad spinners)
Oh wow, that’s something that should have been jumped on to decentralise covid PCR testing before the rapid tests were developed. Remember it for next virus or rapid test evading mutation I guess.
Among my favorite adages is, “give Americans two of anything and they will race them”. In a similar vein, here we see that if you give a creative gamer anything, they’ll make a controller out of it.
Pretty sure he’s not american.
That’s incredibly cursed. Well done!
This reminds me of the Nintendos Labo. These Cardboard Controllers.
“This goes upside-down inside the salad spinner and gets connected to the spinner part so that the entire origami moves in a circle.”
Actually, the mouse and cardboard part (which is not at all origami, since there are no folds) are stationary, and the cardboard circle glued to the spinning part forms a rotating surface for the mouse to track. That is how the mouse button is able to be tapped into for the fire button.
Ok … that’s a hack! :)
All we need now is a Salad Spinner Simulator game, or maybe Salad Spinner Hero.
Salad Ninja!
Salad of DOOM!
Something like Nintendos Muscle March, but with Veggies. :-D
Game Plot: As a poor student you work in a veggie restaurant and the people ordering Salat after Salat… Salat Bowl Master.
Did somebody remember these Gundam/Mecha game with a massive keyboard with all kinds of switches?
You had even button or switches to start your Gundam in the game.
Yep! Steel Battalion from Capcom from 2002 with the Controller Mega Jockey 9000 produced from Sammy Corporation. I searched long to get my hands on one of these.
The steps we have to take just to get back to the basic Pong controller…
That game is also known as ‘Puzzle Bobble’. Maybe useful to us few international readers here. ;)