November 1st 2019, I was in Nanjing teaching a VR workshop. I spent the night watching both Bladerunner films in celebrating the arrival of November 2019 depicted in the first one as the fictional future that the uncanny valley between a real human and a robot is no more…
Began with the Fist of the North Star (北斗の拳), many of the stories that I cherished growing up, the depicted future in these stories had arrived in real life. However, reality obviously failed to live up to the expectations in the context of technological advancement.
I missed the physical monster shop style props in the old science fiction films like Bladerunner 2019, one prop stood out in the sequel for me – Dr Ana Stelline’s Memory Maker Controller (the Memory Orb).
Besides the aesthetics, this is an interesting concept of an input device, it is a combination of a controller, a composer, and an instrument. Luckily, I found this detailed 3D model on Thingverse by Empiricus:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3165692
Downloaded and uploaded to Thinkercad. I plan to put an Arduino in there. The other thing I want to try is to turn those wheels and buttons into working inputs. I printed a few parts out to test and they worked perfectly together. Since Arduino UNO could only conveniently do interrupts on Pin 2 and 3, I decided to have only 1 wheel setup with a 360-degree rotary encoder.
https://playground.arduino.cc/Main/RotaryEncoders/
I may find the perfect usage of this experimental controller. I was playing with the Skinner plugin in Unity 3D and thought this controller will be a great interface for viewing the Skinner effect in VR which is close to the concept of a memory orb in the film.
[Note] The holes in the Center_Main were actually designed specifically for 6V 96RPM Micro DC Geared Motor. I jumped to the 3D model files too quickly without noticing there was a list of electronic parts that the model was made for:
Adafruit:
Lithium Ion Cylindrical Battery – 3.7v 2200mAh
PowerBoost 1000 Charger – Rechargeable 5V Lipo USB
USB Micro-B Breakout Board
5x DFRobot Micro DC Geared Motor 6V 96RPM
3x Micro DPDT switches
5x Micro push buttons
Lots of M2 and M3 hex screws
