Cousteau

Final Project

For my Networked Objects class, I'm going to be working on the networked aspect of my thesis. You can find more information here.

Two Pongs don’t make a Right

Project 3: Pong

For this assignment, I returned to my white cube and created a controller based on that form.

The basic concept is that there's a beam of light emitted from the center of the form. The user holds a mirror and reflects the beam left or right onto the form. Photocells embedded on the R and L hand side of the form register when the beam is reflected its way. These sensors in turn work with the Arduino code to determine which way the onscreen paddle should be set (i.e. R or L.)

I added a reset button and a few extra LEDs to give Status such as R and L, and Connected. Unfortunately the Xport is still not my friend, and I haven't been able to test it at my home studio. On presentation morning, it definitely worked, connecting and getting me into the game. Sadly, I never calibrated my program to the photocells, so it didn't work in the brightly-lit room. (Later that day in the darker lounge area, I was able to get it to work.)

It was pretty satisfying getting the onscreen paddle to react to my controller and other people seemed to be able to use without much of a learning curve.