DESIGN PORTFOLIO
BU Mechanical Engineering '20
WHEEL CONTROLLER
The assignment at hand was to engineer a PC controller. In order to fulfill the assignment, my group designed a wheel with an internal accelerometer. The idea was to mimic the classic Nintendo Wii wheel for Mario Kart. In the end, we delivered, but the accelerometer unfortunately broke before the project's completion. During the following week, we were given another accelerometer. With this, we were able to complete the project and have a functional controller.
ACCELEROMETER
Ideology behind the controller
The accelerometer is the essential component for this project. It alone would be what interpreted the user's actions and converted them into electrical signals. With the help of an arduino, we were able to write a program to control assign actions to the different accelerations that were read through the chip.
WHEEL INTERNALS
Initially, we planned to have both the arduino and breadboard within the wheel. Because of its calibration, the accelerometer needs to be positioned such that it is horizontal to the ground. However, we realized that all the components would not fit in the proper orientation. In order to work around the wheel's fixed size, we soldered the accelerometer to the pins and wires. We believe that the soldering process is what destroyed the first accelerometer because it was after this point when it failed. Despite this fact, we still soldered the new accelerometer and taped it to the top surface of the wheel's compartment.
FINAL RESULTS
In the video shown, my teammate, Ilyas Nazarov, is testing the control for the first time ever on a driving simulator game. At first, it takes him a bit to get the correct steering pattern, but he eventually figures it out with the rest of the team's guidance. In the end, we successfully created a controller even though the first accelerometer broke. This project was a successful endeavor. It taught us how to convert mechanical input into electrical signals.