German designer brings Wipeout racing game to life, burns up cardboard tracks with an R/C car (video)

The intersection of video games and real life is a fantastic place to play, as evidenced by Roombas, Halo and the occasional six-string guitar, but all you really need to blur reality is a webcam, an R/C car and a studio filled with cardboard. That's what Malte Jehmlich and company used to create this rendition of Wipeout, which moves practically as fast as the PlayStation original due to the blinding scale speed of its 1/28 model cars. It's all controlled by an arcade racing cabinet complete with steering wheel and on-screen display wirelessly connected to an Arduino board. Originally a two-month hobby project, the designers are presently working towards an advanced version with force feedback and powerups (including boost!) using sensors built right into the track -- and hopefully a forklift to lug all that corrugated wood pulp around. See it in action after the break.

[Voyn1x Posted Aug 5th 2010 2:41PM]

Graphics are a bit shit

[Ualnosaj Posted Aug 5th 2010 3:10PM]

Funny, no one has commented on why he's using a CRT instead of LCD to streamline things a bit. Sure, that CRT probably is a crappy TV with composite, but hey.

In the meantime, I'll take this instead: http://hubpages.com/hub/Initial_D_Racing_Arcade_Game_Uses_Real_Car

[Omega2 Posted Aug 6th 2010 3:38AM]

@Ualnosaj And now I'm hearing that soundtrack in my head :D

[brandtb Posted Aug 5th 2010 3:53PM]

Daddy Likes!

[ofishel Posted Aug 5th 2010 5:20PM]

I would totally pay at the arcade to play that. The next step is to make the cars full size go-carts which have passengers, but are driven by someone else. Way better than a roller coaster!

[Sicarius123 Posted Aug 6th 2010 5:09AM]

Very cool, just needs some smoother video :)

[miki4242 Posted Aug 7th 2010 8:07PM]

Wow :-) Nice work!