by November was a good time for many hackers and makers around and outside California who got to attend the Hackaday’s Superconference 2015. Power-packed with technical workshops, project presentations and badge hacking , this Superconference was one of the best platforms for the best minds around the world. It was my first hardware conference in United States and I was super-excited to attend.
The most awaited event – Badge hacking started with a blast. Right side of the presentation room were full of people who were soldering and modding their badges for the badge hacking contest. I too joined the group of geeks and started my work.
The most awaited event – Badge hacking started with a blast. Right side of the presentation room were full of people who were soldering and modding their badges for the badge hacking contest. I too joined the group of geeks and started my work.
What did I do?
There were tons of free development boards, components and tools available at the table for us to use in our badge. I took a teensy LC which had a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ freescale microcontroller powerful enough to design what I had in my mind. I had an idea of making a platform independent USB game controller which can work on any Operating System.
Armed with a teensy development board, a MMA7455 3-axis accelerometer and few buttons, I started designing my USB game controller.
How did I do?
Three important tasks at hand were
- Read the MMA7455 accelerometer’s values through I2C
- Auto threshold the initial values
- Emulate USB HID Keyboard
Used I2C libraries to query the x and y-axis values from the accelerometer and set the initial values through averaging. Then, based on the tilt of the controller, the ARM controller emulates keyboard keys.- WASD or Up, Down, Left and Right arrow keys. The user buttons emulate ENTER and SPACE keys. The keys can thus be configured to control any game. I also added a pair of googly eyes with blue LEDs glued behind them which glow only when user buttons are pressed. Though I didn’t win the contest, the experience left a lot of memories to cherish.
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