virtual reality has come a long way but some senses are still neglected. until Smell-O-Vision happens, the next step might be feeling the wind in your hair. possibly father racing a sportbike or kids giggling on a rollercoaster. Not as hard to build as you might think, you probably have the parts already.
Off-the-shelf devices serve up the seeing and hearing part of your imaginary environment, but they stop there. [Jared] wanted to take the immersion farther by being able to feel the speed, which implied building his own high power wind generator and tying it into the VR system. The failed crowdfunding effort of the “Petal” implied that something new would have to be constructed. Obviously, to relocation air without actually going on a rollercoaster requires a motor controller and some fans. powerful fans.
A proponent of going big or going home, [Jared] picked up a pair of fans and modified them so heavily that they will launch themselves off of the table if not anchored down. who overdrives fans so hard they need customized heatsinks for the motors? Anh ấy làm. He admits he went overboard and sensibly way overbudget for many people but he built it for himself and does not care.
Nice man that he is, [Jared] priced and spec’d out both the system he built and the system many of you would want to build instead – Arduino, PC fan, PC power supply and other junk from your partsbins. His personal selection was a T-Rex robot controller, BlueSMiRF bluetooth and twin O2Cool fans – $163 best there and nearly $500 by the time he was done. If you want to imitate his build exactly, [Jared] took photos and comprehensive each and every step of the process.
If you are like us, your first thought was “That’s nice, but it’s useless unless the games are built for it.” Turns out, with a plugin suite they already are. The software is the second hack of this build and it was already written.
[Jared] was amazed too, but the 3d party software he found is called “SimTools” and it works as advertised for speed and numerous other in-game variables. They claim 95% of new racing and flight titles are supported by SimTools, nearly a hundred are noted so far. Some titles you might recognize: Dirt, 8 years worth of need For Speed, Microsoft flight Sim X, Elite:Dangerous, and No Limits Rollercoaster. Sadly, the wonky payment system encourages forum spam to “earn” coins or a per-game annual fee is required. strange or not, it does offer both cash and contribution options, so, it is hard to fault the developer too much.
The project log serves just as much of a tutorial and lacks nothing for a novice. everything a beginner would need to make their own wind generator is covered in his comprehensive walk-through.
Check out the videos below to see a very pleased little girl on her imaginary rollercoaster and a now-with-wind demo of the racing game Assetto Corsa.