[zeta otaku]

So, I posted this over on the GBFans facebook, but I wanted to share it here as well in case some people here don't use Facebook (I don't blame you!)

I want to make this ABSOLUTELY clear: This isn't finished. No, I'm not selling this yet. Yes, I WILL be selling them in the near future. No, you can't have the current files since the bulk of it is based off of Ghostbuster Gear's files.

That out of the way, I've been working this for about a month now. I had some INSANE help with the servo control coding that would've delayed the project another month or more if I just kept hacking at it myself. Now that I've finished the proof of concept, I'm going back and designing my own PKE body shell. Once THAT's done, I'm going to look into cramming some audio into it (need to do research into that) and then getting my own screens programmed in. I want at least 3 different styles: something similar to what's shown here, a screen mimicking the Kenner toy, and a wave form. That will be version 1. and will be the "release" model I plan to offer for sale.

Version 2 will integrate the screen and the antenna directly as, right now, they're two independent systems.

Version 3 will be near identical to version 2, but include a little more hardware and a new feature. Picture the current screen animation, but remove the pings. What I plan on is for the meter to randomly generate a ping. Then, using an IMU, you'll be able to track and get closer to the ping with the antenna and tip lights reacting accordingly.

[prodestrian]

...in case some people here don't use Facebook (I don't blame you!)

As a non-Facebook user I really appreciate it!

I really like what you've done with this build so far, it's a really good job!

Once THAT's done, I'm going to look into cramming some audio into it (need to do research into that)

Happy to help with that if you need it, but you'll probably end up with either a DFPlayer Mini or an audio trigger board like most builds (unless you need realtime audio mixing and processing, which might require changing platforms to the Teensy with the Audio Shield).

What I plan on is for the meter to randomly generate a ping. Then, using an IMU, you'll be able to track and get closer to the ping with the antenna and tip lights reacting accordingly.

I'm literally building that exact feature right now

Here's what I've scoped out so far:

• We want to be able to hand a PKE (or Gigameter, or KUD, whatever) to one of our patrons at an event and have it work all on its own. So I need a consistent and reliable way to achieve this, and I'm writing a library to take care of all the logic (so I can drop it into any of our props).
• The library will intelligently generate a random target and allocate a position for it, but only once a specific function is called from the code. This allows us to use other triggers to add the target, it could be a button press, or a timer, or a combination of both. Maybe you hand the PKE to a kid, then after they've looked at it for a few seconds you can press a button on your belt keyfob to wirelessly trigger the target. There's a lot of possibilities this way.
  The 'intelligent' part of this logic is using the device's current position/orientation and making sure that it isn't in the direction that the person is already facing (it's more fun that way).
• It will also support moving targets. Maybe the target moves around every 20-30 seconds and you have to keep reacquiring it, you'll have full control over this from the code.
• I'd also like to include a strength value for each target (as opposed to distance). Maybe some targets gradually fade away, so you only have a short time to find them. It'll be easy to read the value and use this to control LEDs, sensors, sounds, screens, servos etc.
• I don't know if I have a need for it yet, but I'd also like to add support build in target types. Maybe something simple like 'ghost colours' (where it allocates green, white, red, blue etc at random), or ghost classifications (Class 3, Class 5, etc), or specific ghost characters (Slimer, Muncher, Library Ghost, etc). It's also possible to attach a closure to each target to return different values based on the randomly allocated type (maybe certain types return stronger readings).
• Ideally it should be possible to have multiple targets as well, I just haven't thought much about this requirement yet.

For IMU hardware I've been through several different options. I started with the MPU-6500 IMU, it's absolute trash. They're highly unreliable and require doing a lot of processing yourself in the code. I couldn't get good readings from it.
After that I tried the BNO055 and it's a huge improvement. It has an onboard processor which takes all the sensor readings and does the math for you, so the resulting numbers are very clean and easy to work with. The only downside is the calibration process, which seems to require taping it to a block of wood and orienting it in every direction until it's calibrated. And then you need to extract those readings and save them in your code for next time (or run the calibration every time you reboot!).
So I've now bumped up to the BNO085, which is the same as the 055 but has onboard flash memory to save the calibration values. Seems to be popular with drone builders so that's a good endorsement.
It's also tiny, which isn't a big deal for larger props but for an Iona PKE it's going to be critical.

Anyway, open to any suggestions or feature requests you might have, but once the library is done I'll be sharing it publicly for anyone to use (open source).

[zeta otaku]

Thanks for the info on the IMU units!

As for your "class detection" idea, I was thinking that with the wave form screen idea I had, change that to something like the waveform mini-game from Star Trek Online. If you haven't played that game in the past 10 years or ever, there's a game where you have to match wave forms. With my meter, I was thinkin you turn either the red or gold knob to match the on screen wave frorm and once you lock it in, the screen would give you a "class 3/4/5" in one of the corners of the screen. I dunno, that's down the road for version 2 or 3.

[Thatcrazysquidguy]

Super solid build, looks straight outta the screen! Also really love the interactivity ideas, looking forward to seeing more.

[zeta otaku]

Super solid build, looks straight outta the screen! Also really love the interactivity ideas, looking forward to seeing more.

I'm about... 50% of the way of modeling my own PKE body? I have family visiting this weekend for 10 days, so that'll put things on hold for that time. Gonna bust my butt trying to get as much modeling done before then and then focus on my own animations