As an Assistant Professor, I'm teaching Symbian OS at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria. My company "Mopius" is developing mobile software with a special focus on Symbian OS.
ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
mopius | 27 November, 2007 21:34
Since the API to read the data of the acceleration sensor of the N95 has been released a short time ago, a lot of applications using it have been released. Some examples are the original moving ball-application from Nokia, the light sabre or Accelerinvaders. It’s finally possible to reach a bigger target audience than a few months ago when we released CarMeter and gBoarder, which were only supported by the Nokia 5500 Sport.
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| Control a real car in a natural way by tilting your phone! |
The result is called “ShakerRacer” (thanks to Adam Montandon for this great name!). Stephan Selinger, one of our professors, bought a normal RC car for about €90 and “tuned” it. Not in the traditional way, but instead he replaced the standard remote control component with an own microcontroller and a Bluetooth-module.
Using the Python module aXYZ from cyke64, it was possible to write a small application that translates the movements of the N95 acceleration sensor to commands that can be understood by the car. This enables you to go as fast as 30 km/h by just tilting your phone!
It is a bit similar to the control scheme of games like Excite Truck for the Nintendo Wii, with the huge difference that it’s now in real life. Another idea that has a bit in common is GroundSurf where a skateboard can either be controlled by your own movements (like the Segway) or with a PDA through a Bluetooth connection – but through the stylus on a touch screen and not intuitively like it is possible with acceleration sensors.
Of course connecting the tile of the phone with a real toy car involves you as a player a lot more than the traditional controller ever could, making it a lot of fun!
If you’d like to see it in action, check out the short video that we have made available at YouTube. Enjoy! As usual, you can find more information at symbianresources.com.
James Bond would have loved it...
Entertainment, Games, Python |
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Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
OscarBernabeu | 28/11/2007, 01:09
What Next?
croozeus | 28/11/2007, 13:38
This is truly exploiting acceleration sensor of the device.Great stuff!
Now What Next??
I think being successful on this case you should try this with a real car as well..What say?
Can I order the same RC car to Santa-Claus ? ;-)
cyke64 | 28/11/2007, 14:03
Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
Alan | 29/11/2007, 06:49
Another Name
Rahul | 29/11/2007, 07:21
Just another suggestion for a name, how about :
Acceleracer
Greate!!!
lanseme | 29/11/2007, 11:39
Really nice!!
Some Answers!
mopius | 03/12/2007, 14:20
First of - thanks for all you comments up to now! Great to see that the project is received so well by the whole mobile community!
We're currently tweaking the code a bit and will most likely release the source code soon. The algorithm is not related to the moving ball algorithm, but directly uses the tilt values of two axis for the control data. The application supports controlling the car by holding the car in landscape mode (like a steering wheel, as shown in the video) as well as in portrait mode. In our tests, landscape proved to be far more intuitive.
A real car would of course be very interesting - but also a bit risky: yesterday we broke the front bumper when the phone sent a wrong acceleration value to the car during some tweaking tests :)
Acceleracer would have been a great name - well, we could use it for the real car...
Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
Geld Lenen | 04/12/2007, 18:44
Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
Waldzio | 04/12/2007, 19:38
Hello, on first 5 second, on the film I see PocketPC, Can You tell me, witch program is on PPC??
PocketPC
mopius | 04/12/2007, 20:04
The application running on the PocketPC is Excel :)
The first scene with "James Bond" getting despaired is just for fun. In reality, the car was also controlled with the N95 in this scene.
However, two students are currently working on connecting a PPC to the car, in order to enable controlling it with the Stylus.
PP
Waldzio | 04/12/2007, 20:26
This is The Most Interesting thing That ever happened right after NOKIA n95!
Abdur Rouf | 06/12/2007, 01:50
In-car Cam to N95
seki | 09/12/2007, 01:38
Great
Archik | 13/12/2007, 02:23
Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
ti | 31/12/2007, 16:03
It's Forumer birthday!
Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
liuxg | 05/03/2008, 04:55
A new sample code for "Sensor" has been developed. It has been tested on N95, and a practical use case is also demonstrated in the sample code. A developer may use the engine in the sample as a base to further develop some more useful applications.
The sample code can be found at:
http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109161
senso
Geld Lenen | 10/03/2008, 20:46
Hi liuxg, how come I can not access that thread? As I liked the Shaker Racer very much, would love to try more on this myself.
Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
fishermann | 22/03/2008, 19:46
Cool!
Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
yda4huk | 08/04/2008, 07:26
Very cool other "game" but I think there is also a big demand for other games combined with a Nokia (N95)
it's true!! :)
steering lag
speler | 28/05/2008, 16:37
Hi, this really looks great, a bit like the Wii. I was wondering if you sometimes experience any lag in steering
Controlling game by N95
celix44 | 06/10/2008, 00:55
Really, Will we control pc game from Nokia N95. I will be thank this comment's replier
Control PC Game with N95
mopius | 06/10/2008, 11:53
celix44, if you'd like to control PC games through the accelerometer of the N95, use NiiMe (http://www.niime.com/index.htm).
Who am I?
Thinking about what mobile phones can do except messaging and voice calls is one of my main interests. At the department of Mobile Computing at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg (Austria), I can work on those ideas every day by collaborating with students, researching and - well - thinking.
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Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor
Mark | 28/11/2007, 00:41