What do you get if you cross wearable electronics with gaming? Nothing good, apparently. A minimum of if you’re somethingBAD Labs, that’s. This YouTuber had beforehand made a TV head costume with an LED matrix show, and lately determined to take it to the subsequent stage in a brand new challenge. The aim was to show it right into a gaming PC that you just put on in your head, as a result of why not?
On the {hardware} entrance, an outdated laptop computer display was chosen for the external-facing show. This was linked to a Raspberry Pi 4 single-board laptop by way of an adapter board that converts the proprietary connection into a typical HDMI sign. A digicam and small show had been additionally included within the construct. The parts had been all packed into an outdated CRT TV case that was sliced as much as make it wearable on the top.
Testing the {hardware} (📷: somethingBAD Labs)
The Raspberry Pi 4 can do some gaming by itself, however it’s higher suited to retro gaming than something trendy. So to permit the system to play the most recent and best video games, somethingBAD Labs put in Sunshine on a number PC and Moonlight on the Raspberry Pi for streaming. The small inner show is for the wearer of the costume, whereas the big, exterior show reveals everybody else what they’re taking part in.
A microphone and speaker had been put in to make it potential for the wearer of the costume to speak in one thing aside from a muffled, barely perceptible voice. And when not gaming, somethingBAD Labs created an animated, blinking eye mannequin that’s managed by eye monitoring software program. Sadly, it proved to be too darkish contained in the TV helmet for this to work properly, however swapping in an infrared digicam might repair that in a future revision.
As you may anticipate, this costume was not completely sensible. A makeshift periscope was used to see exterior of the helmet. It form of labored, however was not precisely good to work with. It was additionally very front-heavy, so the again needed to be counterbalanced with a literal bag of rocks. This principally simply served to make your complete helmet actually heavy. A minimum of the battery solely lasts about 90 minutes, so somethingBAD Labs has an excuse to take it off earlier than too lengthy.
This construct is definitely bizarre and awkward, however it’s also very cool. If you wish to win a fancy dress contest subsequent yr, this may very well be your profitable ticket.
