Pedal Your Way Through Games With This USB Exercise Bike

If you’re into biking, there’s very little improved than heading out on the open up highway and sensation the wind in your hair. Sad to say, climatic situations make this uncomfortable or impossible at specific moments of 12 months, so you may be tempted to continue to be inside of and enjoy video online games as a substitute. Luckily, you can now get your gaming fix and nevertheless get in shape thanks to [Patrick]’s work out bicycle recreation controller.

[Patrick] received himself a 2nd-hand work out bike and discovered that the pace sensor inside it was primarily based on a magnet and reed relay, just like a standard bike laptop or computer. Studying out the sensor was thus as very simple as counting pulses making use of an Arduino Leonardo, and the USB HID protocol produced it easy to turn the cycling mechanism into a one-dimensional match controller.

He then done the set up by introducing two 3D-printed handlebar-mounted gamepads with a handful of buttons and a thumbstick on each aspect. The whole technique now performs as an regular gamepad, but with the selection of making use of the bike as a ahead/backward control.

We can envision that this system will keep fascinating for considerably for a longer time than any off-the-shelf world-wide-web-related exercise bike, mainly because you can interface it with generally any recreation. [Patrick] demos his rig using initially-human being shooters like Doom and Workforce Fortress 2, but the options are countless: how about turning FIFA games into bike polo? Or Mirror’s Edge into a bicycle courier experience? Right after all, we’ve presently noticed how a related game controller can switch Grand Theft Auto into some thing a lot more like Grand Theft Bicycle.

Steam compatibility attained. Now I can burn up off the Covid 15 even though playing TF2 @TooftyTV @DaneUncle @valvesoftware @steam @peloton #gamification #physical fitness #TeamFortress2 pic.twitter.com/z0raTSV2Hw

— Kingwood_Tech (@KingwoodElectro) July 24, 2022