DIY prototype 360 Hamster Ball Sim

Agreed on the angle for the motors. I have already calculated and it will be around 40 degress.

That is the easy part. Regarding the optical part, i lloked it up and the orientatio n sensor for this first prototype should be fine.

Any other suggestions?

Have fun?

That for sure!

Hi, here a quick update. So I changed a bit the configuration and I managed to make flypt and my system to talk. I can kind of control on single motor per time but I cannot control 2 a the same time. I tried various settings and the way they activate it is weird. Not sure if I am doing something wrong in the wiring or somewhere else. SMC3 runs perfectly though. I get perfect response from both the motors and the POT.
I think I need some help from @pmvcda

Here some pics of the setup and screenshot of the settings for FLYPT. I try different keys metod in the output string. No luck of using 2 motors in parallel. Only one.

I tried to see a bad connection in your set up but I could not find one.
Make sure that when turning your pot, you don't reach the max limits that will stops your motor.
Nothing else to say as the pots are not controlled by the wheels' position. It is an unusual setup.

That's really starting to look like the inside of a YawVR.

Are you using some tri-wheel robot code?

I found some code online regarding it. That is going to be add later on to the setup. Now the first steps is to make all the connection working properly and understand how generally all the system is working with flypt or with simtools. So far i am not getting much luck. I have problem already connecting 2 motors with one 2x60 sabertooth and i am not sure why since i followed the instruction found here on this forum.

Not sure what to do now.

how big should this thing be to get a person in and all peripherals ? and how do you get air inside

By my calculations ut should be between 2 and 2.5 m in diameter.

this is insanely huge ;D i hope it fits into your gaming room ;D

Sooo. I have been away for work and been busy testing out many things and I think I kind of solved the logic theory behind the system but it goes far beyond my current knowledge and I need support.

The logic is the following:

1. Make Flypt send data to arduino with the desired position and acceleration. I need position and acceleration on 3 axis, so Pos x,y,z Acc x,y,z (at least 6 inputs)

2. Connect 2 arduiono in wifi and send the current orientation of the sphere to the one that drives the motors. The data sent needs to be the same as the one that I get from the game

3. Calculate the delta between desired position and current inside arduino

4. Send the signal to the motor with the correct power/speed to move them towards the desired position.

5. Keep looping the system to have the motor correcting their power to adjust to the desired position

To start I need to get that data from the game/flypt to inside arduino. How do I do that? I think I should use "direct" and then send the data to it. To have one direct per axis and type of data, P or Acc.

Do you think is correct? What bit rate should I use?

I have no idea.

Did you fix your second motor problem?

Yes. Also I discorvered in my system i had a major issue. My pot were not connected mechanically to the motors. It was actually very logical as solution. So that is why they were keep spinning without control.

your wheels dont need to be tilted in 40deg.. that still wont work. they way you have them now would be fine if you flipped the whole thing over and ran it on the floor. to spin a ball, your motor pedestals need to be turned 90deg. like this onion orienting machine: https://old.reddit.com/r/toolgifs/comments/wa867a/machine_to_orientate_a_humble_onion_for_coring/

Nice challenge you have set yourself there. I remember seeing a working one on the forum quite some time ago, but IMO they are not that realistic for the effort involved, unless it is also attached to a centrifuge. All the best, interested to see how you go.

How are things going? I have begin to build a simulator like this to