Practical Interlude: improving the modern classic gaming experience

I’ve decided that alongside my creative projects - which seem to be in a constant state of unbloggable flux lately -  I’ll post a few of my more practical, technical tinkering projects on here; trying to keep them as interesting as possible. First up, using classic controllers on modern consoles with the help of Arduino:

Alongside my recent foray into the world of unusual game controllers (more of which to come in the next few weeks) I’ve also ended up attempting to bridge the sizeable collection of classic gaming hardware in my house with some of the newer gear currently holding fort underneath the TV.

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Am I a STEM-punk?

Before my next post about what I’ve been working on, here’s something that’s been on my mind this week:

It recently dawned on me that friends and family are beginning to assume that I must now be an accomplished programmer and engineer. They look at the artwork I’ve created, the myriad of technological ‘vignettes’ that I post on this blog, and the increasing array of circuits and components sat on my desk, and they take them as an indicator that I must be clued-in and comfortable with the STEM subjects.

The truth is: I’m really a bit of an amateurish blagger, although I’m not sure if that’s such a bad thing.

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Awkward Arcade: motion-controller for Pac-Man

Having sat on a box of Digisparks – some very small Arduino variants – for the past few weeks, I finally decided to give them a quick test for this week’s ‘Monday Night Hack’:

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Mood Lamp/Email Indicator

Having just received an AlaMode – an Arduino-compatible shield for the Raspberry Pi – I decided to give it a quick run out with this project:

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For the love of moving parts

This is the first thing that I’ve made since coming out of hospital recently. It’s not overly ambitious but it’s fun, and has raised (or re-raised) some interesting questions for me:

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The Dead Percentage

I must warn you: you might consider this post to be slightly morbid. The Dead Percentage is a new tweeting project of mine that lets you know what percentage of a film’s leading cast is now deceased.

A bit of context might help explain:

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iTunes ‘MiniPlayer’ Replacement

Like many other people this week, I updated to iTunes 11. Apple’s latest revision of its central media application has seen some quite significant alterations to its overall aesthetic and functionality, and drops features like Coverflow* and a useable mini player…wait, what?

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Hide My Face - real-time face pixelation for your webcam

A quick little tool I knocked together (mostly amalgamating other tools) to preserve anonymity when using a webcam…yet another by-product of a different project idea.

Hide My Face has a simple, single slider interface, designed to control how much your face is concealed – or revealed – when looking at a webcam. Move the slider to the left and you’re out in the open, move it to the right and you’re heavily pixelated. The pixelation is incremental, so you can gradually reveal your face or, alternatively, snap one way or the other instantly.

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