Hell sure has become the popular destination in afterlife recently. In order to improve the overcrowded working condition, the employment bureau in hell has open up to the idea of remote working. This is a pilot program for testing remote monster walkers in hell. If you receive one of these kits at your doorstep, congratulations, you are going to hell soon, and you better set it up and start working, those hell hounds won’t walk themselves!
This is a single player experience made possible with a custom alternative controller which allows the player to walk a hellhound in hell. People who work remotely as a hell hound walker will receive a remote working kit. Inside the kit, there is a monitor, a specialty controller (the Hell Hound Leash), manual, power adaptors, and some AV cables.
I have been wanted to use Gametrak controllers for something fun since it came out. I had offered it to my students from time to time just to see what came up. Here is an fun example:
The enclosure for the Gametrak 2 module has gone through many iterations. The original design was meant to work with M5Stack Fire and its units, so I had thick wall to accommodate the Lego connector pegs. I moved on to a simpler Arduino setup because the analog data are more reliable for what I am doing. I am able to reduce about 5mm of the thickness which helps the controller align with the hook on top better.
I made a cauldron controller in 2020 (here). Originally, the controller was meant to do two things — read multiple ingredients (RFID tags) and use stirring motion (KY-040) as an input. The multi-RFID reader board wasn’t that reliable at the time. Depends on how the RFID tags was stacked, not all tags were read properly. However, stirring both clock and counter-clock wise was working and felt very satisfying. I have wanted to build an example of a simple ID system, I decided to come back to the cauldron and try a different approach to id the ingredients.
The old cauldron was made of KY-040 and Adafruit Feather. I decided to build the ID input module and cauldron with M5Stack this time because a stack of Limit Switch units (SKU: U145) is perfect for creating a simple ID system. I made the ID input module in the form of an alchemy cabinet. The player can insert the ingredient data card from the top of the cabinet and press down to send in ID. Switch-based ID system is a simple but effective method used in many interactive toys. Every switch has an on and off state. I used 5 switches to create 2 to the power of five -1 IDs for this play experience. -1 is because 00000 won’t work in my setup. I am only using 5 ingredient data cards at the moment.
Working with the M5Stack unit – Limit Switches: I wanted to create an ID system using 5 limit switch units. However, I found out only 4 of the 6 ports on pHub unit can be used as digital inputs. The rest two are analog only. This is not a road blocker, it only makes reading switches a little more complicated. https://shop.m5stack.com/products/limit-switch-unit
Working with KY-040: I started out with the basic example code that can be easily found on the internet. There were little unwanted jumps on directions here and there, but it was acceptable. However, when I started to add more code to the sketch, the amount of jumps increased drastically. At first, I had suspected it might have something to do with debouncing. The amount of jumps remains the same after trying both software and hardware debouncing. I then found out the code I added to the sketch, especially in the loop(), slows down each loop cycle by about 6 ms compared to close to 0 ms with just the KY-040 example code. I eventually found a workaround using interrupts which in a nutshell is like threading for Arduino. It works perfectly without any jumps on directions when stirring the cauldron. https://github.com/ownprox/Rotary_Encoder_KY-040_Fixed/
What goes into a witch’s cauldron? Poison’d entrails, toad, fillet of a fenny snake, eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, tongue of dog, adder’s fork, blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, howlet’s wing, scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, maw and gulf of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, liver of blaspheming Jew, gall of goat, and slips of yew, nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips, finger of birth-strangled babe ditch-deliver’d by a drab.
Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I (William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616) This poem is in the public domain.
The three witches, casting a spell [First Witch] Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights hast thirty one Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot. [All] Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. [Second Witch] Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. [All] Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. [Third Witch] Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron. [All] Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. [Second Witch] Cool it with a baboon’s blood. Then the charm is firm and good.
When I was reading Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai (DRAGON QUEST –ダイの大冒険–) as a kid, I had always fascinated by all the magic artifacts in the story. The magic bullet gun (魔弾銃) was my all-time favorite.
The gun belongs to Maam (マァム), one of the main protagonists in the story. It takes form of a gold-colored large-caliber single-shot pistol. There are a total of 8-10 bullets depends which version it is. For each bullet, a sacred stone that accumulates magical power is embedded at the tip, and by touching it and chanting a spell, it becomes charged with magic. The charged bullet can be loaded into the pistol from the the back by opening the tail cover, one bullet at a time.
After the defeat of Flazzard (フレイザード) on the island of Bulge, large firepower was needed to save Princess Leona (レオナ姫) who was frozen in ice by a forbidden spell. Because of this, Dai (ダイ) charged the bullet through his dragon emblem (竜の紋章), and although he was able to shoot it and melt the ice, due to the recoil from using a bullet with more power than the allowable amount. The gun barrel breaks in half. Badak (バダック), the self-proclaimed “King of Inventions,” tried to repair it, but it was broken beyond repair. Badak said, “Avan (アバン), who created this gun, was a genius.”. The Magic Bullet Gun was no more which is a pity.
There are 2 major gun visuals. The biggest difference is the design of the trigger area and handle. Little torn here, because I like both designs. I am going to focus on Gun Visual No. 2 for this round because I had boxed out a prototype a while ago.
V3V3
This is designed specifically to with M5Stack system. I did hack it a little so I can use the B port for both a limit switch unit (SKU: U145) and a Neopixel ring. I used a RFID 2 unit to detect the bullet. In my first iteration, I had put the unit flat on the button of the bullet chamber. It doesn’t detect the RFID tag at all. Now I have it stand vertically and it works beautifully.
I don’t have solution for sound effects to be built into the gun, but I am going to try the thing I learned from the Chiba Hogwarts — send sound to a Bluetooth speaker. Take advantage of M5Stack’s built-in Bluetooth and connect it to a Unity app that plays the sound effect.
Assembly
[Sound Testing Video]
千葉ホグワーツのハリーティッカー
The next thing I want to improve is the battery life. M5stack Fire comes with a 500 mAh battery bottom and it doesn’t last long. I am planning to create a type C port at the handle and attach one of those mini 5000 mAh power bank. That will provide about 10 times more battery life that what I have now.
Not all pins on the Leonardo and Micro support change interrupts, so only the following can be used for RX: 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 (MISO), 15 (SCK), 16 (MOSI).
“… addForce apply the force at the center of mass.” “simply cheat and do both a AddForce and Addtorque, then you have simple control over your inputs without having the headache of doing proper physics computation for achieving your controls.” “the other option is to use “atPosition” property, this will in effect apply a self force but not from the center of mass and thus imply a torque” http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rigidbody.AddForceAtPosition.html
Sherlock Holmes & The Dimensional Pipe is an AR experience that allows the participant to revisit mysterious crime cases that were solved by detective Holmes and Dr. Watson around 1900. This time and space entanglement between 1900 and 2022 was made possible by combining an alternative controller called “the dimensional pipe” and the AR capability of a smart phone.
a dimensional pipe prototype
About the demo case: The Adventure of The Unholy Man
This is the first and probably the most famous one in all the editions of the 221B Baker Street board games including the video game adaptation of the board game in 1987.
It is interesting the video game version and the board game version have different numbers of clues this case: – Longworth does not smoke. – Anastasia did not like the strange preacher.