Fire away: Hack lets you play Angry Birds with real slingshot
Mastered all the levels in Angry Birds? Launch yourself into a new challenge by playing the game with a real slingshot. Here's how.
By now, you're probably a little bored of playing Angry Birds, but here's a new way to make it fun and challenging again.
Simon Ford over at Mbed has an awesome hack that lets you hurl your favorite fighting birds using a real slingshot. Inspired by a demo on how easy it is to build your own USB devices, the idea behind this DIY project is to turn the slingshot into a mouse.
The slingshot was actually handmade by Chris Jarratt using a branch he found in Epping Forest, London. Ford then hollowed out parts of the branch, so he could integrate an accelerometer, a microcontroller, stretch sensors, and a USB connector into the shooting apparatus.
The microcontroller acts as the brains of the device, while the accelerometer tracks the tilt and angle of the slingshot and the stretch sensor measures the amount of tension in the rubber band. Finally, the USB connector, which is embedded at the base of the handle, enables you to connect the slingshot to your computer.
Ford then wrote some code to translate all that data into mouse movements, so you can go about flinging those angry birds at those meddlesome pigs. If you're up for the challenge, Mbed has a full set of instructions on how to make a slingshot of your own on its Web site.
(Via Popular Science)