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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.

ShakerRacer: Control a real car in a natural way by tilting your phone!
Control a real car in a natural way by tilting your phone!
Now we wanted to take the acceleration sensor of a mobile phone to the next level and use it to control something literally “bigger” than an application that is running on the phone itself.

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 | Next | Previous | Comments (22) | Trackbacks (0)

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Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor

Mark | 28/11/2007, 00:41

Really nice!! It would be interesting to control pc games as well! Could you create something to be compatible with glovepie?

Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor

OscarBernabeu | 28/11/2007, 01:09

Trackback http://www.xatakamovil.com/2007/11/28-shaker-racer-radio-control-con-un-nokia-n95

What Next?

croozeus | 28/11/2007, 13:38

croozeus

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

Great experience and good video :-) I'm proud that aXYZ and PyS60 has been used in that project ! Have you implemented moving ball algorithm in your code (I saw a ball moving on the screen) ? When will code be available ? BR Cyke64

Re: ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor

Alan | 29/11/2007, 06:49

Fantastic application of the phone technology! What is next?

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

mopius

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

Very cool other "game" but I think there is also a big demand for other games combined with a Nokia (N95)... Next to a car, a boat or heli. Just give a communication protocol and a lot of hobby builders can go ahead :D

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

mopius

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

ok, thanks, ;] but when, this students are connect car with PPC, where i can get information about this..?

This is The Most Interesting thing That ever happened right after NOKIA n95!

Abdur Rouf | 06/12/2007, 01:50

First of all, allow me to say COOOOOL! CONGRATULATIONS! This is one of the most interesting thing right after NOKIA N95. Unfortunately it is troublesome too because my Electromechanical Professor dared me to get the codes and blueprints.. and do it my self.. (appereantly I was showing off with my phone.. and the video..:-(..) so I was wondering on how to ask you guys on how you did it.. Apperantly I am a noob in this field. But hey, I am still asking for it since it is the Coolest things to show off (yah I like to show off somewhat....) and get an easy 'A' for my final.. (that was the bet)... Once again.. many many Congrates and thanks on your achivement... Sincerely' Abdur Rouf.

In-car Cam to N95

seki | 09/12/2007, 01:38

driver view! stream view to N95 drive as if you were in the car. Or RF cam to TV .. use N95 as controller to drive with that view. (This is easier)

Great

Archik | 13/12/2007, 02:23

Great Idea. I don't now about James Bond, but ny litle brother really would have loved it.

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

liuxg

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!! :)

This

mobiel internet | 12/04/2008, 14:27

Very neat! I'm going to search more N95 tricks on Youtube.

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

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