Buzz
Stuck indoors during Covid? Peter Gyory and his colleagues at UCB's ATLAS Institute have devised a gaming machine from discarded cardboard lying around the house.
The result is a gaming machine named Tinycade. What's intriguing is you can also create a similar device yourself. All you need to design this gaming machine is some cardboard, two small mirrors, rubber bands, and skewers. Gyory and his colleagues presented their work in June at the Creative Computing Association and Cognition in Venice, Italy, in a paper published in the conference proceedings.
Gyory is a member of the game developer community, focusing on building Alt Ctrl games (using alternative controllers). These are games where players use physical control interfaces, such as controllers, instead of touch or motion sensors.
The explosion of digital fabrication techniques has driven this work, notably 3D printing and laser cutting. Most Alt Ctrl games rely on platforms like Arduino or Makey Makey. However, these designs require a certain level of technical expertise, and most Alt Ctrl games are only showcased at specialized exhibitions, making them inaccessible to the majority of consumers.
'Utilizing common materials and simple DIY approaches, we hope Tinycade can narrow this gap,' shared the authors.
The only electronic component the research team used is a smartphone. The console's body evokes the image of a classic gaming cabinet and is cut from sturdy cardboard for easy assembly. Next, players need to build controllers for the games. Then, they just need to place their smartphones into the gaming console and start playing.
A notable feature of Tinycade is its utilization of Computer Vision in the control interface, enabling designers to use markers to create functional interfaces on paper. The phone screen displays the game, while markers on the back are detected by internal mirrors, serving as lenses, adjusting the camera's angle with the control panel.
The Computer Vision-based controller operates on Javascript. The controller will identify pre-marked points, determine coordinates, angles, and movement. Using Javascript has several advantages. Firstly, it facilitates code reuse, allowing developers to quickly reuse processing code without worrying about build times or OS compatibility. This ensures that Tinycade isn't tied to any specific hardware or system.
During development, the team built a library to aid in designing user interfaces for Tinycade and utilized this library to design some games for testing. These games range from single-player to multiplayer games via Wifi or the Internet. Each game has different control methods, from simple to complex. The system works exactly as expected.
Tinycade remains a gaming machine in need of improvement in several areas. Most notably, high CPU load and Computer Vision latency. Even with a modern smartphone, the machine still has an average delay of 0.2 seconds. Consequently, controllers do not respond as quickly as expected. Additionally, limited camera angles also restrict design space.
However, Gyory believes that the Tinycade gaming machine is sophisticated enough for hobbyist producers in the Alt Ctrl community to start crafting and sharing their own custom setups. 'And someday, anyone with a smartphone can join Game Controller Hackathons,' he shared.
- Explore more articles in the Discovery section
