How can you participate in a Nerf gun fight if you’re missing a hand? The ingenious Hackerloop collective of tinkerers solved that problem by putting together a prosthetic Nerf gun that you can control with your arm muscles.
In other words, Nicolas Huchet became Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy VII or Mega Man for a day. And here’s what it looks like:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45HNO8SIvSc]
Let’s look at the device more closely. In particular, Hackerloop had to find a way to replace the trigger on the Nerf gun with another firing gesture.
The base gun is a Swarmfire Nerf blaster without the handle. Thanks to some 3D printing, Huchet could wear the device as a prosthetic extension of his right arm — it’s a custom-made casing.
The Nerf gun is then connected to an Arduino-like microcontroller that activates the gun on demand. And finally, Huet is wearing three electrodes near his elbow. If he contracts his muscle, the electrodes send the electrical activity to the microcontroller.
If the voltage reaches a certain level, the microcontroller fires the Nerf gun. And of course, Huchet played around with it in the streets of Paris. Pretty neat!
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In the past, Hackerloop has worked on other creative hacks. The team built a replica of the house in “Up” using paper and foam and sent it above Paris to post photos on Instagram using a Raspberry Pi.
They also worked on the Nosulus Rift, a VR fart simulator to promote Ubisoft’s South Park game (The Fractured But Whole). Every time you fart in the video game, the Nosulus Rift emits a farting smell.
I tried it myself and it really stinks.
