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Driver's-Seat Driving Game Controller
RichardX writes "The folks at Real Virtual Car have taken an old car, hooked up a projector to the windscreen, USB on the steering and pedals, connected it all up to a PC and ended up with what may be the single greatest homemade games controller ever." Even a force-feedback steering wheel!
Back in university, we had a similar project except for aircraft simulation and they needed computer engineers to co-ordinate the output of MS flight sim to the various controls/acelerometers and actuators but a significant problem that was encountered was the delay of the actuators and controls to the output on the screen. When you're in such an immersive environment, even slight delays will make you crazily sick after a very short amount of time. Hopefully they have some sort of system to ensure the delay isn't excessive.
Personally, I think this is an awesome idea and can be expanded to have huge potential in our automotive society today.
Just think, now student drivers can get into a virtual car for the first time and learn the basics of driving without actually putting anyone or anything at risk. Of course more features would have to be added such as pressure controll and methods to allow the car to move up and down as it would on a real road when it encounters pot holes and such. Eventually the student would have to practice on a real car, but by that point they should be a good driver, sufficient enough to avoid accidents.
In addition, you would be able to change the view so that you could see what a drunk or someone what is high would see when they drive. Granted this wouldnt solve all drunken driving, but it might help veer some people away from it, thus potentially saving lives.
The applications besides this go on and on, I would like to see some more work done in this area.
http://www.force-dynamics.com/video/force-dynamics _301-rbr-rallyschool.wmv
Long signatures suck.
Let me guess, you're American?
Being a non-average Amercian, I'll narrow your suspicion and say he's an American who barely got his license and just is nieve, or he's an American who is... just kinda clueless.
I'll append his statement to what it should be -
There's nothing like driving on a cool, dry day, double apexing a large, sweeping turn listening to the engine approach redline in 4th gear as you approach a set of compounds, blip the throttle with a perfect downshift to 3rd while straight line breaking, turning in and going over the birm on the inside, throttle steer into the tight right, and flooring it as you fly out to the left.
I get to do that about 3 times a year at high performance driving schools and racing schools. But it's very expensive and hard on my car. Enter the newest breed of racing games that are becoming more and more "driving simulators". I applaud the folks at real virtual car for trying to make the video gaming experience as immersive as possible for those of us who can't afford to make racing their career.
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
Funny you should mention that... I just noticed not one but two of these things offered a week or two back at one of the classified ad sites for that sort of thing. They are both in the UK.
Carmageddon would be fun to play on this.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Let's see...did that year have a "carburettor"? I know it had sparking plugs. Always remember to toot the hooter when you run your tyres over the kerb. The tools were in the boot, I'm thinking. Only thing funnier than "English" English in car and motorcycle manuals is "Japanese" English...Japanese motorcycle manuals from the 60s were a scream...
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Incidentally, one car was there first, so when I realized it was going to be a while before I fix it, I bought a second car (used). After driving that for some 25,000 miles, it broke, too. When I finished dismantling it and realized that it would be a while, I bought a third car. This is getting ridiculous.
The point of the above is this: Instead of reassembling these cars, maybe what I ought to do is sell the motor, trans, and anything else that will fetch some dough, and then convert them into a video game! That would be so freaking down!
In fact, I could set it up like a race, so you've got two people in two separate cars playing against each other!