development
Trigger Fingers was my final project for CSC235: Physical Computing. Created at the same time as I was making the HoloView Performance Viewer, the final prototype was built, coded, and tested in about three days. The idea was to create a gun turret that would be controlled by hand movements. Early tests indicated that it would be possible to shoot a 3D printed dart gun, but lack of a small enough high-torque motor meant that a small linear actuator would push out the dart instead. Not liking the results from the linear actuator, I decided instead to embed a small laser in the gun, which would flash on the target whenever the dart was to be fired.
The name “Trigger Fingers” is a reference to the Drake song, “Back to Back.”
The prototype
Trigger Fingers is powered by an Arduino. Flex sensors attached to three fingers of a glove send their input data through a breadboard to the Arduino. A custom Arduino sketch translates the input values to output instructions for the two motors and laser. One finger controls the x-axis, one finger controls the y-axis, and another controls the laser. Both the x-axis and y-axis return to their original position when the fingers aren’t flexed. While buggy at first, small changes to the Arduino sketch resulted in more controlled movement.
