Joe Pietruch's Blog

James Alexander and I worked together on “Bullrider” for our Physical Computing class. Our assignment was called “Project Runway.” Our task was to create a wearable project that had integrated sensors.

Jim had an inflatable bull riding costume from a previous Halloween party that was perfect for this project. We placed an Arduino in the hat, which took readings from an accelerometer. We also attached terminals to a grip-strengthener exercise thingamajig that would sense when it was held closed, and topped that piece of hardware off with a reset pushbutton.

The goal was to simulate a bull ride for the user wearing the costume. To begin the ‘game’ they close the grip-strengthener (simulating a tight hold on the rope) and keep it closed. On screen, there are two fields above and below a graphic representation of the bull. When the user jumps, it moves the graphic of the bull up and down accordingly. The fields gradually move apart, and the user must jump higher and higher to touch both of them. If the user fails to maintain a steady grip, or fails to touch the fields at a certain interview, he has fallen off the bull.

Below I’ve included the on-screen portion of this project. It differs only by means of user input. Instead of holding the grip-strengthener, the user must press the spacebar. Instead of jumping, the user must move the mouse up and down repeatedly.

Keep an eye out for photo and video of the actual project, as well as the link to a case study!

Bull Rider