Owl Prowl

Owl Prowl is a four player competitive game played with alternative controllers. The four players must play as an owl character in the game space. Their goal is to catch the most mice before the time runs out. Each player uses a plushie owl to control their game owl. The game is played in the center of the frame, where the game is reared projected from a projector housed inside the structure. Each player stands on a corner of the structure, which also corresponds to their game space owls' homes.

Audience:

We are targeting casual gamers and those who are interested in having a unique experience playing with alternative controllers.

MATERIALS:

1. Velostat
2. Conductive paint
3. Conductive tape (Conductive on both sides)
4. Solder
5. Soldering Iron
6. Fabric
7. Stuffing
8. Buttons
9. Scissors
10. Pen/Sharpie
11. Conductive fabric
12. Sewing Machine
13. Sewing needles
14. Thread
15. Unstripped wire
16. Wire stripper
17. Wood
18. Cardboard
19. Arduino Mega

Video:

To construct a head, we need to make a ball out of fabric. To do this we are going to cut six ovals of the same size. It is best to use a stencil and trace the stencil line and then provide .25 width around that drawn stencil to cut the ovals. Then using a sewing machine, sew two of the oval pieces on the stencil line made from the stencil. Sew along the long edge. Once that is complete continue to take the other ovals and continue sewing them together.

Once the six sides are sewn, then cut two circles out of fabric. This two circles will be used to cover the top and bottom of the ball. Hand sew one circle first. I used a running stitch, but you can also use other stitches. Once one circle is sewn, then sew in the buttons as eyes. Then sew in the beak using an orange thread. Finally stuff the head and then hand sew the other end of the head to finish it up.

To make the head potentiometer you will first need two wood cylinder pieces. It is best to have them the same size and cut them so that you head fits nicely on top of them. Also cut a hole in the center of each wooden circle. On one of the circles, all you need to do is use copper tape or conductive paint from the hole to the edge of the circle to make a straight line.

On the other circle, use conductive paint to paint a circle around the center hole, but don't close the circle. Leave a little room and then paint a straight line down on one of the ends. Then use velostat and cut a larger circle that also isn't fully closed and has a straight line that goes to the edge of the circle. Glue that around the conductive paint. Make sure they don't touch!

Then it is time to make the circuit. On the back side of the circle with the velostat and conductive painted circle, use conductive tape (much better if both sides of the tape are conductive) so that it lies on the other side of the wooden circle. The conductive tape connected to the velostat will be connected to the analog pin of the arduino, then a 10k ohm resistor, and then to ground. So it should look like VELOSTAT -> ANALOG PIN -> 10k RESISTOR -> GND. The tape connected to the conductive paint will connect to the five volts on the arduino. Solder on the wires and resistor to finish up the head potentiometer.

Make a pattern for the body of the owl: a front, back, and two side pieces. Once the pieces are cut out, sew the side pieces together the short way. Then, sew the front and back to the side piece with the insides out. Make sure to keep the pieces aligned as they are being sewed. Next, cut the wings out, and sew them together.

Flip all pieces so the seams are hidden on the inside. Place a dowel on the inside of the body to be fastened to a wooden plate on the bottom of the body. Stuff the body of the owl with cotton around the dowel..

Cut two pieces of conductive fabric and separate them with a piece of velostat. On the stomach of the owl, layer the pieces in this sequence: conductive fabric, velostat, conductive fabric, felt. The felt is used to protect and cover the pressure sensor. To wire the pressure sensor, sew a piece of wire to each conductive fabric patches. Make sure the velostat is completely separating the two conductive pieces. Thread the wires through the body and out the bottom. Sew the felt patch to the stomach to the stomach, and attach the heads to the potentiometer necks.

Since we have a total of four plushies, each with a potentiometer and pressure sensor, we need a total of 8 analog pins on our board. The Arduino Uno only has six, which is why we are using the Arduino Mega! Hook the potentiometers to Ground, 5 Volts, and Analog Pins 0-3. The pressure sensors will be hooked to the 5 Volts and Analog Pins 4-7.

The code is available below. Finally our code is simple because we are sending the arduino data to unity through serial communication for our game.