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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!
Screw that, drive a REAL car. There's nothing like a cool, crisp day, with the wind blowing in your hair, as you shift to 5th gear, going over 70 MPH.
They probably could've purchased any arcade racing game for cheaper...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
"Look, a cyclist! 30 points!"
"No, over there! On crutches! 100 points!"
Windshield sounds so much better, like it is some kind of protective device that makes you invincible, allowing you to run over pedestrians with gleeful abandon. Windscreen on the other hand sounds like something that could barely keep flies out of your automobile.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Seems like they took the idea from the Namco idea in London, UK. Where a few years ago they had a real mazda MX5 hooked up to a Ridge Racer game.
The concept seems fun, but it's kind of taking realism half way. Also seems like the images are down on that website already
Business Voyeur
already?
http://realvirtualcar.blogspot.com/
Have a nice day =)
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.
Here's the networkmirror of it.
With an entire chassis, why did they opt for just one speaker behind the driver?
There are small, decent sounding, and (relative to the cost of the car shell) inexpensive 5.1 setups. And you'd be able to mount most of the speakers in the existing speaker mounts.
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
If that "5V/12V variable pulse speed gauge" doesn't cut it, I don't know what will.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
If my kids hear about this, I'm screwed!
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
If you live near one of these
http://www.smsonline.com/centers/index.html
you can ride a close to life size Nascar car that moves a little. About 10 are networked together and you race against each other. The race is projected onto a screen in front of you.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
...until they capture the *real* essence of driving.
Sucking exhaust fumes from a sight-blocking SUV. *That* is what I'm talking about.
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
Gentlemen, you may now start the jokes about crashing a car that doesn't even run.
"Ad infinitem et ultra!" - Buzz Lightyear
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.
I drive a '71 SIIA 88" Land Rover. Not only do I have a cracked windscreen, but I also have a tyre on my bonnet.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Commendable DIY effort, but I've used a system like this at my local "Holiday Hypermarket" before, based on some model of Cadillac. I have no idea what it was doing in a travel agents in East Kilbride, UK, but it was running a funky driver training program and token-operated.
BSM (UK group of driving schools) brought a mobile version based on a Vauxhall (Opel/GM) Corsa to my school a few months back as well.
Nice weather for penguins...
I saw Disney movie when I was a kid where there was a kid from the day he was born had nothing on his mind but cars. They had this one scene where he's behind the wheel of a vehicle desk in a classroom learning how to drive while watching a driving movie (the kid managed to crash his vehicle desk -- don't ask me how). I thought that was the coolest thing ever (this was long before computers became available for the home).
So when I got to high school, I was expecting the same thing. Instead, they handed me a booklet to study and told me that my parents would teach me how to drive. WTF! My Dad had a one-ton truck and he would not teach how to drive that. So I never did learn how to drive as a teenager. I was so bitter...
All cars have game controllers -- they're called steering wheels, brakes, and accelerators. With the appropriate combination of l33t combo moves, you can pretty much win the following games on your morning commute (in Atlanta):
- Gran Turismo: I-285 Edition
- Need For Speed: GA400 Gridlock
- Project Middle Finger Racing
- Grand Theft Auto: Midtown Street Parking Edition
In Ohio, you have a car game unavailable in most parts of the country (although LA just introduced it, from what I hear):
- Freeway Sniper Spy Hunter
IronChefMorimoto
... sounds almost as much as an oxymoron to me as "Microsoft Works" does.
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
Comes with an toy uzi for drive bys.
And an inflatable doll for parking.
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
Wouldn't your Driver's Ed teacher (aka the basketball coach) be much happier if he could verify your skills in one of these, rather than from the passenger seat with nothing but a second brake pedal between him and being pwnx0rd by a bridge abutment?
... so we crashed the gate doing ninety-eight, I says let them truckers roll, 10-4, 'cause we got a mighty Convoy rockin' through the night...
It's not such a crazy idea... check out the Truck Driver Simulation Mobile Classroom. It's a full-sized full-motion multi-screen 18-wheeler simulator, designed to help train professional truck drivers. The unit -- which itself is housed in an 18-wheeler trailer -- claims to be "unlike any in the world," although the folks in the UK are trying to catch up.
Myself, I'd like to see what it's really like to climb in the cab and say
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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.
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.
...is using actual car to surround you. I used to have a ColecoVision game system (early '80s) which had a steering wheel attachment and accelerator pedal. You would snap the joystick into a slot on the steering wheel console to use as a gearshift.
True, the steering wheel didn't have force-feedback, but there are a number of real cars that don't give adequate feedback through the steering wheel, to my taste.
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
All this, and it still can't simulate the feeling of accelerative forces which is the best part of driving.
NADS = National Advanced Driving Simulator
www.nads-sc.uiowa.edu
Many people tell this joke, but unfortuantely most people have no idea where it came from.
Death Race 2000 (1975) was a movie where killing people with your car was a national sport. You got different points for the different ages, races, etc.
Most metropolitan areas have the DVD in one of the multiple video stores, and it's an interesting movie... especially with Sly Stallone getting second billing to David Carradine. Learn your history, the fun way. Next week: Q-Tips!
"The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly" - Touchstone,Shakespeare's "As You Like It"
Which always rises a bit when in France.
We just started this project few weeks ago We're surprised it got this exposure. We are having lot's of FUN (and bleeding cuts) working on this project and we hope you'll enjoy checking it out. Come back again to our blog in the future - we hope we can find a better place to host the videos (so you can HEAR it also) Zvika
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!