First day of the Sketching with Hardware practical course. When the advisors had introduced themselves and some formalities were settled, we started with the basics of electrical engineering. First, we approached the physical relationships between resistance, current and voltage. Then electrical circuits and their components were explained in more detail.
Once the most relevant components and their usage were illustrated, it came to hands-on testing. Armed with a multimeter, we proceeded to measure voltages and resistances and checked connections for continuity.
Based on this basic knowledge we constructed simple circuits on breadboards on our own. Equipped with battery, jumpers, resistors, diodes, switches, buttons and capacitors, we applied the previously learned contents practically.
Following the lunch break the course continued very practically. A keyboard controller extracted from a computer keyboard served as a starting point for small group work. The goal was to design a creative way of interaction for computer games. The concept was to short two contacts of the keyboard controller to send a specific signal to the computer. After we found out what contacts corresponded to which key on the keyboard (e.g. the arrow keys) we could replace these by self-designed switches.
Some people have a really hard time waking up and getting out of bed everyday (including us). To ensure that they won’t be late for work or class people have found their solutions to themselves out of bed. Some use more than one alarm clock and others even place their alarm clock into the bathroom, so they can immediately take their ice-cold wake-up-shower. But what if the alarm clock is too quiet and overheard? Catastrophe. Worry no more, dear friend: the Gunslinger Alarm Clock is here. This baby will get you out of bed faster than you can say “What-the-hell-is-happening-and-how-do-I-make-this-thing-stop?”.
First, you choose when you’d like to wake up just as with any other alarm clock. Once the alarm starts at the chosen time, the Gunslinger Alarm Clock then uses its gun to shoot a rather tiny ball through the bedroom that is needed to turn off the tremendously loud alarm. That means you have to get up and go look for it, and trust us – you will! If you want to speed up the searching process, the gun can be aimed at a particular point in your room, otherwise the position can be randomized.
How does it work?
The gun can perform two basic movements to aim: it can turn 180 degrees left-to-right and 120 degrees up and down. For that, you can use your computer mouse or a touchpad to precisely get the position you need. Before you can set the alarm (or shoot the gun), it is necessary to properly load it. The loading process stretches a spring inside the gun barrel. We chose a strong spring with a resistive force of 60 Newtons – so the ball can be shot through very large bedrooms, too. In order to compress that particular spring, we built-in a strong motor that has a bolt-on screw. This screw is attached to a carriage that moves the spring backwards. After a certain point, the trigger is automatically locked and the motor moves the loading contraption back to its initial point. You can see what happens inside in the hand-sketch picture.
Sketch of the gun's interior
The gun can be triggered both automatically (when the alarm starts) or manually (to have some fun at the office). The triggering is indicated by playing a shoot-sound.
For the alarm clock, a standard digital alarm clock was hacked. Once you have found the ball, insert it into the clock and a switch will shut it off.
In case you want to build your own Gunslinger gun, here are the ingredients:
2 big servo motors to control the horizontal and vertical gun position
1 smaller servo motor to trigger the gun
a powerful motor that can go clockwise or counterclockwise to compress the spring
a lot of metal parts (gun barrel, trigger, bolts)
a stable stand. We built ours with a laser cutter.
last but not least, an Arduino to control the gun.
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Values and Potentials.
Our gun alarm clock helps people get up and thus prevents from oversleeping. In our idea-finding process we tried to find out what problems any person has each day and this is what we came up with. Potentially, our prototype could use paint balls or water filled balls that are shot at the sleeper. Because some people are likely to overhear their alarm clock even it is standing in the closest proximity. Of course, one would have to use very small projectiles to make sure no one gets hurt. We want to help people, not hurt them.
Next Steps.
There are a few things that could enhance the Gunslinger Alarm Clock experience even more. So far, we have not developed a snooze function. We thought the snooze button could randomize the gun position and further compress the spring. Alternatively, the gun could be equipped with an automatic re-load mechanism: If the person decides to snooze, but the ball has already been shot, the alarm can be turned off and the gun loads another ball by its own.
Additionally, the design is still prototypical. The exterior has some rough edges and the overall look can be improved. In manual mode, it would be cool to have LEDs indicating the loading status.
About
The Gunslinger Alarm Clock project was carried out by Andreas Kolb and Tobias Stockinger. We’d like to thank our tutors Hendrik and Sebastian for the awesome course!
Monday 9 a.m. – the best time and day to start off this practical course with an introduction to electronics. Sebastian and Hendrik explained the most basic parts and concepts to give us some fundamental knowledge for the upcoming tinkering. We learned about current, resistors, LEDs, transistors, Ohm’s law and so on. After that, the fun part started when we received some basic soldering training and learned how to apply a multimeter to measure various parameters. Unfortunately, the need for coffee could not be measured precisely by that device.
Keyboard Hacking
After lunch, we began hacking keyboards: By opening the backs of the brand new devices and removing unnecessary parts in an unscrupulous act, we salvaged the main component, the control unit. Modifying these control units allowed us to send input manually to the connected computers, using several new and rather unusual interaction methods. The main topic for this modification task was the idea of creating a new “game controller”. So we teamed up in groups of two, following probably THE most ridiculous way to find the partner: draw a card from a hat and make the sound of the animal that’s written on that very card. This actually happened and we can prove it whenever necessary. So the groups and gave new life to the poor little keyboards that we tore apart like a hungry lion hunting down a gnu. Some of the results are shown in the pictures below.
In general, no special preparations were made for this task. Apart from the keyboards, we just used what was available from the institute’s tremendous pool of parts, known to some as the chamber of horrors.
While the design wasn’t the primary goal and pretty much reminded of traditional gamepads, some ideas didn’t rely on moving within a game via ordinary buttons, but instead by tilting the device. This feature was enabled through the use of super-awesome “ball switches“. On top of that, buttons triggered special actions like shooting. One group added a foot-pedal as well, to take the player’s game experience to a higher level for a racing game – pedal to the metal and Mario Kart was pwnd.
Another group created their own game, using contacts attached to the floor and one foot of the player. It was therefore possible to detect real jumps. The challenge of the game then was to achieve the longest “air time” possible (by this point, you might have noticed the pic with the one guy walking on air. Don’t worry – he eventually came down and did not have to stay up there).
A cool concept was created for a balancing game: Here, the controller most closely resembled the actual appearance of the game itself where the player would stand upon a simple seesaw-like balancing board, which could then be rocked from one side to the other to keep several balls from falling off a shifting wooden plank within the game. N1.
See ya tomorrow
At the end of this first day we have already gained some general experience with creating and modifying electronic devices. Overall, the idea of “sketching” became clearly visible, which is fundamental to this course. Always remember, kids: We are not here to develop highly refined products, but prototypes – or, well, sketches. Hacking a keyboard gave us a good first impression of what this means, but we bet there’s a lot more to come.
For the practical part of the first day every group gets a package containing a multimeter, a soldering iron,a side cutter, screwdrivers, LEDs, resistors, all kinds of other handy electronic toys the core part of our future projects: the Arduino Uno Board (http://www.arduino.cc/)
Equipped with those essentials tools we are ready for the first practical task of the day. To learn the handling of the multimeter and the soldering iron, we are asked to measure the resistance of different resistors and afterwards solder it to a board.
The afternoon challenge is to hack a USB keyboard and transform it into any game controller we can think of. Every team therefor chooses a computer game and develops its own individual game controller. But first, we need to learn how to hack a USB Keyboard…
Hacking a USB keyboard
There are various descriptions and tutorials, how to hack a keyboard on the Internet. Arduino offers a very nice German tutorial that explains all the steps in detail. http://www.arduino-tutorial.de/2010/06/keyboardhack/
In the following you find a short description of the single steps:
Step 1: Open up the keyboard
First we need to remove all screws at the back and open up the keyboard. To hack a keyboard we need the controller of the keyboard. It is practical to use hot-melt glue to fix the fragile parts (cables) of the controller and make sure that the controller doesn’t get damaged when it is taken out.
At the bottom of the controller plate is a number of connection pads. If there is contact finish on the pads, we need to remove it with a small piece of sandpaper to make sure that we can solder cable tails to it later.
Step 2: Trace the letters back to the pins
Every controller is different. Therefore it is necessary to test the pin configuration. This can be done by using the sheets with the conductive tracings of the keyboard and a multimeter. We connect one end of the multimeter to the key that we want to use and test the ends at the controller for a signal.
Step 3: Attaching wires and
Now we can solder wires to the chosen pins and connect them to any kind of sensor, switch or whatever else you can think of…
Keyboard Hacks of each group:
Group A:
Anna Follmann, Beatrix Vad
Game Controller – Super Cruiser
Super Cruiser is a kind of wheel. You can control a game, for example a Race Game by tilting it to any side. Tilt it to the front to accelerate, tilt right or left to change your direction.
Technically it is realized with three Ball-Switches. The Button on the top works with copper band and a feather which was unter the Enter Key of the keyboard.
Group B:
Johannes Preis, Chadly Marouane
Game Controller – Jump & Run
This Game Controller for Jump & Run games, brings the feeling of Jumping to the real world. Each time the user want the player to jump he has also to jump.
A cardboard lying on the floor detects if the user touches it. If not he is probably jumping. With a stick you can control the running direction of the player.
Group C:
Verena Lerch, Frederick Brudy
Game Controller – Fire Joystick
With the Fire Joystick you can control various games. You can change your direction with tilting the joystick. For firing/hitting or any other game action you can use the button on directly on the joystick or hitting a button on the floor with your foot.
This Controller works also with Ball switches to detect inclination. The Buttons a build with copper band.
Group D:
Maraike Stuffler, Robert Rödler
Game Controller - Kung Fu Fighter
Kung Fu Fighter is a fighting game. The player can hit with his fists or with his feet. Exactly this realizes the Kung Fu Fighter Game Controller. You can hit a cardboard with your fists and one with your feet. To run through the game world you turn a pice of plastic to the right or left.
The cardboard buttons are realized with two peaces of cardboard with a little bit of space in between.On each side there is a copper band. When the two copper bands touch each other the button fires. The controller for running uses ball swiches.
Group E:
Kyun-Jing Park, Lorenz Schauer
Game Controller – Air Joystick
The Air Joystick is like a normal Game-Joystick but without a base. It has a button on the top for interaction with a game.
This Joystick has an very special Button on the top. It uses the conductivity of a human finger. When the user touches the top of the joystick, he closes an electric circuit.
Group F:
Verena Hillgärtner, Bernhard Hering
Music Instrument – Music fist
Music fist is a music interface for a computer. You can use it with a software keyboard that matches keyboard inputs to MIDI signals. By turning your arm around you can change the tone. With the buttons on the top of the instrument you can decide if you play or not.
The selection of the tones is realized with 8 ball switches. Ball switches only switch when there is an inclination modification by 45 degrees. So this tool uses two struggles with 4 ball switches. You can switch between these struggles with the 3 different buttons on the top.
