Electrify

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  Inside circuitry of taser shock module

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  3D printing the casing

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  CAD file of taser shock module

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  Footage of gameplay

Inspiration

Reflecting on our childhood, many of us used to play .io games with friends for fun. But what if we upped the stakes, and created an even more fun and thrilling environment?

We came up with Electrify, a portable taser module that adds an exciting "electric shock" element to gaming. In a world where esports and gaming are popular like never before, we realized that adding physical haptic feedback to gaming would create a more immersive atmosphere amongst the players. Specifically, upon the player's loss, the module sends a pulse of electric shock in the form of a bracelet.

Our team believes that the shared experiences in gaming are priceless. We added adaptive user-immersive background music and a photo feature where the computer captures the facial expression of the players getting tased and converts it to a forever memorable NFT as a prize to the winner.

What it does

Each user attaches the taser module bracelet on their wrist. The users play a simple physics-based multiplayer game (similar to bonk.io) through individual computers. If the player dies, the program sends a signal to the taser module hardware via Arduino Bluetooth. The taser module then converts the 9V battery to a high enough power for a tasing effect, and the player will experience an electric shock in the form of a bracelet.

We utilized IntegratedSystems IRIS Vector Search to create a user-immersive and emotion-inducing BGM and combined the camera footage of our computers and Crossmint to create NFT snapshots of the users upon winning/losing the game.

How we built it

We began the project by designing the taser module circuit, scavenging the necessary parts, soldering the PCB board, and assembling the taser module electronics using jumper wires. We coded a program on the Arduino to receive Bluetooth controls from the computer.

We used socket.io to interface the game across multiple devices, enabling realistic play across distance barriers. The game was a complex physics simulation with charmingly simple mechanics.

Finally, we designed a CAD model to house the electronic components and manually constructed the taser module.

Challenges we ran into

We can sort the challenges into two categories.

For hardware, we had a hard time fabricating the taser module because each iteration of 3D printing and wrong soldering takes hours to fix.

For software, it was quite challenging to reduce latency and save game states across hardware and software components.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of being able to integrate many different software and hardware components into a large system project. We were especially excited and relieved to see the multiplayer game perform perfectly in conjunction with their taser module.

What we learned

We learned how to mechanically prototype hardware from scratch, and integrate different software elements such as socket.io, InterSystems, P5.js, Express.js, Node.js, Arduino, and Crossmint into our project.

What's next for Electrify

From a hardware perspective, we want to add a way of gathering information from the user through EEG, heart rate sensors, etc. Also, we want to invest in more ways of "tasering" the user through different electric shock modules. With this, we can start adding more advanced haptic feedback to this project.

From a software perspective, we want to make Electrify a plug-and-play device for any video game. By utilizing frame data and machine learning, our next goal is to create a general application that interfaces the taser module to any platform.

Built With

• arduino
• c++
• crossmint
• express.js
• intersystems
• javascript
• node.js
• p5.js
• python
• socket.io