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BoomChaCha!

Wangshu Sun, Yue Zhang, FY Zhu

BoomChaCha! is a physical musical role-playing game where three players will fight together against monsters.

http://bit.ly/BoomChaCha

Description

About BoomChaCha!

This is a physical musical role-playing game(RPG) where three players will fight together against monsters, with magical weapons in their hands.

Basically there is a warrior attacking the monster, a defender defending all of the three, and a mage healing all of the three. The three characters share the same life so they will get hurt or get healed for the same amount of health.

Unlike most of the RPG games, BoomChaCha! is musical. This means it is always better to follow the rhythm while playing. There's always a “Boom Cha Cha, boom cha cha” six-beat pattern repeating itself in the 6/8 background music, which creates a feeling of dancing party rather than a dangerous fight. During the first three “Boom Cha Cha”, you can do attacking, defending or healing by hitting the first “Boom” with the physical sword, shield or wand, and the effects will be executed in the next three “boom cha cha”. That is to say, if the warrior hits the first “Boom” beat, an attack will be executed in the next “boom cha cha”; if the defender/mage hits the first “Boom” beat, the next “boom” it will start defending/healing all the characters.

Since our aim is to invite people to play together, acting cooperatively should get better results than doing alone, so we designed an “assistance” logic with the “Cha Cha” beats. That is to day, if the warrior hits the “Boom” followed by the other two hitting the next two “Cha”, “Cha” beats, you will get a huge attack-power bonus and can kill the monster fast without getting too much damage. The same applies to the mage and the defender.The more assists, the better effects the players will get. Better results are also granted by the better timings of you three hitting the first three “Boom Cha Cha” in the six-beat patterns in the music.

At the beginning you will be in a practice mode to learn how to play. When you think your are ready, you can enter the fighting mode and the monster will start attacking you. Try to kill him fast and prepare a defend before his attack, and during the gap after you kill a monster, it’s a good time for you to get healed.

In all, if you want to survive and thrive, follow the beats and dancing together!

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media, Introduction to Physical Computing, Introduction to Physical Computing

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Homemade Robotic Hand

FY Zhu, Wangshu Sun

Designed an open-source robotic hand for the disables and also for fun, currently we use the MYO as the input control for gesture control, and will use LeapMotion for interaction usage

http://itpzhufy.com/2015/10/21/hands/

Description

One of the biggest distinction between human-beings to other creatures is that human have hands. Unfortunately, not everyone have two hands. Though 3-D printing is very popular in the current age, it is still not available for everyone to take usage of it. We designed a Low-cost Robotic Hand, with only piece-by-piece materials and standard parts, make it available for everyone to duplicate it only with cardboard, scissor and parts bought in Amazon. We also make a linkage between Myo and our Hands, in order to make the hand controllable by the residue muscles that the most disables have.

The hand works well currently, made with acrylic and a transmission between the computer and the Myo. The whole system has suffered a presentation time for the NYU prototype fund show on Dec 4th, and attracted lots of the attentions and good feedbacks.

The interaction-part currently is a half-slave logic, that is to say, the hand will do some gestures as the user do, but also, some unusual gesture will be another trigger for some pre-determined gesture, like the video shows, turn the palm out will trigger the victory-gesture and turn the palm in will trigger the rock&roll-gesture, that’s only designed for the disables since those unusual gestures actually have the most powerful muscle electricity signal.

For the winter show, I will duplicate another hand made actually with the materials like cardboard and foam, in order to show it’s potential of the duplicatable for everyone, and will make the current hand with another two freedoms of wrist and use the LeapMotion as the input part, in order to finish some simple interactions like Paper-Scissor-Stone and Give-Me-Five.

Classes

Designing for Digital Fabrication, Introduction to Physical Computing