Night Drift

Night Drift

an endless, action-packed car driving game in synthwave retro style, built with p5.js and Arduino, featuring skin stretch haptic sensation to simulate the physical feel of turning a steering wheel when the joystick is pushed left or right. 
Additionally, the controller includes a ventilator fan providing air-based haptic feedback on the palm, enhancing immersion through wind sensation (used during a boosting mode in the game).

Educational Game Project with Custom Controller (p5.js & Arduino):

HapticDrift-Wheel Controller:

• Two-part custom-designed,  3D-printed arcade-style cylindrical game controller
• ring-shaped part around cylinder ("steering wheel")
• built to provide haptic feedback for the endless car drive game

Inputs:

• a joystick (for smooth lane switching across three lanes)
•  2 arcade push buttons (for attacking enemies and activating boost mode)
         - Black push button: start/restart game & attack
         - Yellow push button: activate boost mode

Outputs:

• ventilator fan (activates during boost mode; continuous airflow as tactile feedback to enhance player immersion)
•  servomotor with gearwheel mechanism (rotates a steering wheel like ring around the HapticDrift-Wheel Controller based on joystick movement; skin stretch sensation for steering-like feedback)
  

Hardware components:

• 3D-printed the HapticDrift-Wheel Controller parts in Onshape (cylinder, steering wheel) to integrate the input and output devices
• Arduinos and Arduino motorshield (to integrate and control input and output processing)
• all input and output devices (see above)

>> see screenshots and video for visual reference

Support / Collaboration:

- GLASBOX makerspace (https://projekt.bht-berlin.de/zukunftstadt/glasbox):  access to 3D printing, CAD design workshops, and assistance throughout the development process.
- Lecturer Juan Olaya: Arduino & Processing workshops and assistance

Additional Notes: 

>> Can also be played with keyboard (Z=Attack, Space=Boost Mode, Left/Right Arrows for lane switch)
>> Some visual assets were AI-generated and then manually edited. 
>> This game and all associated assets are intended for non-commercial use only and were created solely for educational purposes 

References:

A. L. Guinan, M. N. Montandon, N. A. Caswell and W. R. Provancher, "Skin stretch feedback for gaming environments," 2012 IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and Games (HAVE 2012) Proceedings, Munich, Germany, 2012, pp. 101-106, doi: 10.1109/HAVE.2012.6374430.

Patrizia Di Campli San Vito, Gözel Shakeri, Stephen Brewster, Frank Pollick, Edward Brown, Lee Skrypchuk, and Alexandros Mouzakitis. 2019. Haptic Navigation Cues on the Steering Wheel. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 210, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300440

Guzererler, A., Provancher, W. R., & Basdogan, C. (2016, July). Perception of skin stretch applied to palm: Effects of speed and displacement. In International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer Applications (pp. 180-189). Cham: Springer International Publishing. 

Alexander Achberger, Frank Heyen, Kresimir Vidakovic, and Michael Sedlmair. 2021. PropellerHand: A Hand-Mounted, Propeller-Based Force Feedback Device. In Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 4, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3481549.3481563