Turn anything into a videogame controller, even a banana | Hacker News Reader

Turn anything into a videogame controller, even a banana

kickstarter.com

This looks awesome.

That said, it seems like they already have production figured out, all the research done, etc. Why not just sell the product, instead of running a Kickstarter campaign? Is this just functioning as a pre-order, so they can make a big batch of them?

Big batch will make the average production cost go down.

"If we raise $25,000 then we can do a large first run, which brings the retail cost down significantly, so that we can sell the kit to you for $35 (including shipping)."

Is this just functioning as a pre-order, so they can make a big batch of them?

I assume a lot of the Kickstarter projects (certainly most hardware ones) are exactly that.

Even though I can program an Arduino just fine, this is so low-friction that it will encourage me do short projects and experiments I otherwise might not.

I think it's a great idea. They're making electronics fun and interesting which will hopefully attract people that would otherwise run a mile! Good luck guys!

Looks like a great gateway project. You can start using it to make simple custom controllers, but it's also a fully programmable Arduino with everything that comes with that. Really cool project and great price point.

I can think of a thousand cool things you could use this for, outside of a keyboard. It takes the controller abstraction up one level, making it accessible to magnitudes more people. With this + a raspberry pi, the sky is the limit.

It's interesting that both this and raspberry pi's intent are to be educational in nature. And fun at that.

What a delight. I look forward to playing GTA with a cheese controller.

The collaboration with SparkFun (a well recognized and respected group) was a very good choice.

Have you worked with SparkFun before?

No idea what they're like to work with, but I happily buy from them regularly (even though you can get a lot of the stuff slightly cheaper elsewhere).

nope, but i have a lot of respect for how they run their business. the only experience i have is when i asked them to add a product, and they were very professional.

Did you have a particular reason for asking this question? :)

This project has tremendous potential for children with special needs. I've basically had to build a similar device from scratch in 2006 as part of my ITP (NYU) thesis project [1]. This could have saved me so much time! Backing it, and hope you will too!

[1] http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/dmal.9780262...

The first thing I thought of was CamSpace: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/control-any-game-with-your-webc...

I remember using it a few years ago and it seemed pretty buggy (though maybe it was just my low quality webcam). This seems like it has a lot more potential.

Very creative indeed. I have been using Picoboard (http://www.picocricket.com/picoboard.html) for teaching with Scratch. This gives so many ideas for the resistance sensors. Awesome job guys. Will back you up.

I as a software hacker/tinkerer I have been wanting to get into hardware hacking for quite a while and this looks like a perfect starting point "kit" to play with, with the perfect price.

Thank you for making the world a bit more interesting :)

This is what I call "user interface".

Will it be possible to modify this to work with other OS's such as BSD, GNU/Linux, Solaris, etc.?

The microcontroller being used can be setup to appear as a standard USB mouse/keyboard, so this should work with anything that supports a USB keyboard and mouse.

using this device in interaction with a kinect could be a killer application: the kinect gives you the coordinates, the MaKey signals when the user really touch something. Everything could become a touchscreen ...

I call this INPUTATION, and the device INPUTIZER!

Just look at this banana game controller!

Is there an accompanying karate game, so that you, like Woody Allen, can beat a man senseless with a banana? (Sleeper)

Looks like a fun way to make familiar, intuitive controls for your friends.

banana phone???

Reply on news.ycombinator.com