robot-arm-controller

Inspiration

Our one mech major has a lot of materials and parts lying around his room. Our goal was to take these and make something cool and innovative out of it using VR technology.

What it does

Our robotic arm is controlled in real-time via web socket using the Oculus Rift Touch controllers, mimicking real-life movement.

How we built it

It's a three layered architecture. First we have a unity game built with the occulus sdk that sends input to a NodeJs web socket server. Next, this server sends to input in real-time to an arduino running C code. Finally, the C-code interprets the data and moves the arm.

Challenges we ran into

Establishing a fluid connect of the socket with unity. We ended up switching over to a NodeJS server linked with WebGML in C#.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have finished this monstrous Hardware/Software cross-over project. Compared to every other hackathon we have participated in, we can't seem to think of a more ambitious project.

What we learned

We learned how to set up a working web socket server as well as work with the occulus SDK in unity. Finally, we learned how to interface with a complex system of belts controlled by motors using an arduino.