Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Arduino-controlled interactive punching-bag

Cory Doctorow at 11:01 am Thu, Jan 12, 2012

— FEATURED —

Book Review

Black Code: how spies, cops and crims are making cyberspace unfit for human habitation

Book Review

We Can Fix it! - a graphic novel time travel memoir

Science

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle

Summer interns at the Open University's computer science department created this interactive punching bag, then figured out how to play Ode to Joy on it:

The ‘interactive punching bag’ is a conventional punching bag that has been enhanced to provide various forms of stimulus and feedback (such as sound, lights, and displayed images or information). The physical characteristics of each punch are captured using impact sensors and accelerometers, and fed to Arduino processors. The device is programmable, and LEDs, speakers and an (optional) associated display can be used to provide different configurations of stimuli and feedback, and to log interactions over time. The bag was devised as a means of investigating interaction design in the context of a fun, physical, familiar object. It will be used to study the impact of different forms of stimulus and feedback on users, and the impact of interaction design on user experience over time. We are especially interested in the impact of different interactions on motivation and stress management.

Ode to Joy on a punching bag (Thanks, Marian!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  arduio • happy mutants • Kids • maker • uk

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

  • Eddie Perkins

    Anyone else find it disturbing that the very first sounds they decided to have the punching bag make was a woman’s voice? 

    • blueelm

      … laughing…

      yeah, me too.

  • http://libraries.unl.edu dross1260

    Raging Dull

  • Culturedropout

    I resent the implication that I’m Arduino-controlled…!

  • TooGoodToCheck

    It seems like this is cosmetic differences away from being a working muppaphone

  • manolo garcia

    Didn’t the russians invent something similar in Rocky IV back in the 80′s?