What we've done so far

Hugh thought up the idea of using computer mouses as buttons for the punching bag. They respond well to the computer.




We destroyed a chair to turn it into the punching bag's frame and holder.



A sad alternative if we can't get a projector.

Cellophane...



We're making the bag out of a doggie pillow and bubble wrap.



Testing out the sturdiness.



Now we gotta stick them mouses in the bag and wrap them up.
It's all good.

Game Modes

I have another idea about a way to play the game. Repeating played beats can be x mode and for y mode you can just punch along with the melody in time. But their are no specific places on the boxing bag to hit. Free mode? It'll be good for songs like Chop Suey or what ever.

Meeting

Just wondering if everyone is available to meet up on tuesday sometime, so we can go over the various things that we need to have done by thursday.

Hugh

lego

Does anyone have any old generic lego bricks I could use to prop up the buttons? I've cannibalized an old mouse to create a target, now i just need something to prop it up with.

Hugh.

Punching Hero

This better be music based. Audio and lights will play the rhythm to punch and kick. I can imagine it: The rhythm of Eye of the Tiger's intro plays and then the actual song starts playing. That's when you gotta punch in time with it. Then simpler rhythms will play throughout the song, and you copy after you hear them.

Ideas in making it:
Instead of putting lights in a punching bag only for them to break, use a projector. There will be 3 big red lights flashing at different times. They'll each cover one section of the bag to hit: top, middle and bottom. I figured three big lights would suit because the bag will move a bit. When the whole bag lights up blue, that means "kick".

-Ana

click counter proof of concept

Just got a proof of concept uploaded to a friends server.

http://draconius.byethost6.com/thingy.zip

It should open a pair of black windows, one entitled "pygame." Clicking in this window will cause the other window to display the number of clicks.

Hugh

Edit, the adress likes to change itself from "byethost6" to "bytehost6"...

Input

I've been fiddling around with some designs using buttons and an old usb mouse to record the punches.

Essentially, by removing the top of the mouse we gain access to the three buttons, left middle (scroll wheel) and right. We re-wire the mouse, adding lengths of wire in-between the button and the mount, allowing us to position the buttons however we want.

The mouse is connected to a computer, which is running a simple program that records mouse clicks. If a left click is registered in the target area (the application window) a counter will increase. This is the same for the other two buttons, except each has its own counter.

If we remove the trackball/optical tracker from the mouse, we don't have to worry about the impacts moving the cursor out of the window, and we've gained a simple way to track hits on a variety of targets.

Hugh