reaction trainer

2 Articles

2022 Sci-Fi Contest: CyberGlove Tests Your Reactions

April 24, 2022 by 1 Comment

Since the 1980s, we’ve seen innumerable attempts to revolutionize the way we interact with computers. Since the advent of keyboards and mice, we’ve seen everything from magic wands to electric gloves, with [Deemo Chen]’s project fitting into the latter category.

The build takes on a cyberpunk aesthetic, with addressable LEDs installed along each digit. The various digits light up randomly, and the wearer of the glove must tap a button on the corresponding digit in order to test their reaction times. An Arduino Uno runs the show, and keeps track of the score, displaying the results on an attached HD44870-compatible LCD.

The mess-o’-wires aesthetic, with bare electronics hanging off the glove, goes a long way to making this look like a proper bit of sci-fi kit. The lurid, colorful glow is a key part of this look, and something we’ve seen on many projects over the years.

Overall, the reaction trainer served as a great freshman project for [Deemo], along with their chums [Dhruv] and [Ryan]. Along the way, the team clearly picked up skills in microcontroller programming, as well as learning how to work with LCD displays and addressable LEDs. Master these skills and you can pull off some impressive feats. Video after the break.

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Reaction Trainer Keeps You On Your Toes

July 24, 2019 by 1 Comment

In many sports, it’s important for competitors to be light on their feet, and able to react quickly to external stimuli. It all helps with getting balls in goals, and many athletes undergo reaction drills as part of their training regime. To help with this, [mblaz] set out to build a set of reaction trainers.

The training setup consists of a series of discs, each with glowing LEDs and a proximity sensor. The discs randomly light up, requiring a touch or wave to switch them off. At this point, another disc will light randomly, and so on.

The discs are built using an ATmega328 to run the show, with NRF24L01+ radios used to communicate between the modules. High brightness red LEDs are used for indication. An optical proximity sensor is used for its fast reaction time and low cost, while power comes via a small lithium polymer battery integrated into each disc.

We’re sure [mblaz] and his fellow athletes will find the rig to be useful in their training. There’s plenty of scope for electronics to help out with athletic training; this boxing trainer is a great example. If you’ve got a great sports engineering project of your own, don’t hesitate to send it in!