Remote Person Control (First Jam Prototype)

(You might also be interested in the second prototype version of this: Robots Love To Do People Things.)

The October Berlin Mini Jam was crazy enough – we had a triple splitscreen with blinds made out of cardboard and and a MakeyMakey game using fruits and vegetables as controllers. (“And to shoot, you just touch the plum.”)

Fueled by this energy, I made this toy prototype for the theme “Lab Experiment”:

Remote Person Control

One person gets a computer and
a gamepad: The Controller.

One person gets a smartphone, earphones
and closes their eyes: The Robot.

The Controller can now steer the Robot
with transmitted voice commands:
“Left, left, stop, forward, forward…”

Like I say in the video, it’s not finished. It is just a toy right now – I ran out of time to make it a game. I’m thinking about adding commands like “Move your body” and “Move your right hand” so you can actually steer the Robot’s hands too – and then have a command like “grab” to pick up stuff, for example.

The prototype was already a fun experience even with just simple directional controls though. It feels really interesting to use a gamepad to control something in real life (and a human on top of it) instead of something on the screen!

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

While working with Unity is normally a pleasure and developing Android has proven to be far more straightforward than other mobile platforms, this time I just got terribly unlucky. Here is how I spent my time:

• 4h reading up on and implementing the network stuff (connecting, waiting, synchronizing and dealing with disconnects)
• 0,5h getting and eating food
• 1,5h “fun” while trying to get Unity/ADB to recognize the HTC Nexus One Mini Christiaan lent me
• 1h “fun” with “Unable to find suitable jdk installation Please make sure you have a suitable jdk installation. Android development requires at least JDK 6 (1.6)”
• 15min “fun” with “Error building Player: ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.”
• 40min of actually implementing the gameplay: Input/Sound
• 5min testing and generally being a happy person

Closing Words

And now, a screenshot from the video, so that Facebook etcetera knows which image to use:

Who knows where exactly I’ll take this? Certainly not me, although I have some ideas. Maybe the next jam will be the time to find out!