Final Project Journal

Project Ideation

1- Tell us about the idea of your project. Why do you care about this? What were you inspired by? Include images and videos of similar projects

My Idea is to make hardware gadgets for playing video games, I am a game developer so I am very interested to integrate what I learn in the diploma in my career, I get inspired from the VR Controller really amazing so I want to create my own custom gadgets for custom games like YuGiOh Duel desk, Ironman hand repulser and harry potter wand.


I thought to make a cool idea we all know Thanos the beloved character in Marvel Avenger movie, so I want to make his gauntlet with infinity stones to control a first person shooter PC Zombie game.


  1. The idea is to make a Laser Cutter wood ARM parts something like Thanos Gauntlet and spray it with my fav colors to control a PC game first person shooter to kill some zombies.

  2. Second I will attach Arduino with 5 LEDs as the stones light and made the stones themselves from resin.

  3. Third I will add MPU6050 accelerometer & gyroscope module to the gauntlet to act as a in-game first person camera controller to aim at zombies.

  4. Then I will add an IR sensor to act like a trigger for shoot functionality in the game.

  5. The communication between the arm and the game will use HC-05 Bluetooth module.

  6. Make the First Person Shooter zombie killing game using Unity framework.

  7. Map the data from accelerometer & gyroscope to the game player main camera and control the aiming with the received quaternion data, also use the IR sensor to control the shooting.

  8. I will use LCD and place it on the arm to show the number of zombies killed.


Project Construction

2- Explain the CAD process of your project. How did you use the software to design your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

First I decide to make the gauntlet from laser cutter wood.

I use Fusion 360 to make the CAD and a laser cutter with Plywood to fabricate the parts.

The gauntlet consists of 8 parts, top and bot, the right side consists of 2 parts and the left side consists of 3 parts.

These are the steps I use to make the CAD, also there is a video attached describing all the process.

  1. First I create the 8 parts sketches.

  2. Extrude the parts.

  3. Assemble the parts with joints.

  4. Import screws and nuts from fusion 360.

  5. Assemble the screws and nuts using joints in the t-slots.

  6. Import hardware components from GrabCad into the design.

  7. Assemble the hardware components on the parts and using projection to make the components sketches to use them for making holes for the hardware components.

  8. Finally I exported each sketch of the 8 sketches to DXF to use them in LaserWork.

cad-steps.mp4

3- Explain the fabrication process of your project. How did you use the machine to fabricate your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

I use LaserWork to prepare the parts for laser cutting.

I use 4 Plywood sheets for fabrication, 3 for the project and 1 for testing and troubleshooting.

The 3 sheets, 1 for Top part, 1 for Bot part and 1 for the whole other parts front left and right.

I use the DXF files for the 8 parts exported from Fusion 360

These are the steps, also there is a video attached describing the whole process.

For all parts I use for Cut mode (speed: 15 & power: 75) and for Scan mode (speed: 300 & power: 50)

  1. Open LaserWork and make a new rld file for top part.

  2. Import top part DXF file and place it on the sheet

  3. Download the file to laser cutter and configure its focus.

  4. Take one sheet and place it on the cutter working area

  5. On the laser cutter press File > my file > Track Frame to track the working area on the wood sheet

  6. Press Run and wait until the cutting process is finished.

  7. Repeat the steps from step 2 to 6 again for each wood sheets, the 2nd sheet I placed the bot DXF file and repeat the steps, the 3rd sheet I placed the all sides and front parts on the sheet and repeat the steps.

  8. Ok now we have the whole 8 parts so I assembled them, I attach the parts using the taps and I put the screws in the t-slots and I finally put and rotate the nuts around the screws, I did that for all the parts it fits good thanks god xD

  9. I taking apart whole the device to mount the hardware components on it.

fabrication-steps.mp4
laser cutter.mp4

Project Electronics & Power Management

4- Describe your electronic circuit. What are the input and action components? What is the function of each? How do the components integrate together to form your smart system? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

I used these hardware components for the project

  • Arduino UNO

  • LCD I2C 16x2

  • MPU6050 IMU Sensor

  • IR Sensor

  • HC-05 Bluetooth module

  • Wires & Jumpers

  • Breadboard

  • 1K resistor

  • 2k resistor

As you can see in the circuit diagram

  1. I attach the 5v and the GND of Arduino on the breadboard

  2. I use MPU6050 for calculating the orientation angels, I attach the VCC & GND of sensor to VCC & GND of Arduino and the SDA of sensor to A4 and SCL of sensor to A5.

  3. Same thing for LCD the VCC & GND to Arduino VCC and GND and the SDA of LCD to A4 and SCL of LCD to A5.

  4. The IR sensor has 3 legs VCC & GND to Arduino VCC & GND and the signal pin attached to pin 9 on Arduino.

  5. The HC-05 module has 4 legs, VCC and GND I attach them to VCC & GND on Arduino & TX from module to RX on Arduino and The TX from Arduino goes to a voltage driver circuit using 1 resistor 1K ohm and I can't find a 2K ohm so I attach another 2 resistors each one is 1K ohm in series, then I take a wire after the 1 ohm then attach it to the RX pin for the module.

The video below demonstrate the circuit diagram.




electonics-steps.mp4

Full circuit

MPU6050 & LCD with A4 & A5

IR Sensor with pin 9

HC-05 Bluetooth Module with Arduino

5- What is your power source? How did you select the suitable power source for your project? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

The power source is the 9v battery for the whole system, It's is the best option for needed voltage for all parts to operate including the Arduino Board Also it made it easy to use the gauntlet without wires instead of the DC adaptor.

Project Programming

6- Describe the code of your project. How did you program each function of the project?

The code of the projects consists of 2 parts, first the Arduino code used to read the MPU6050 Angels readings from I2C using the accelerometer and gyroscope mixed together with complementary filter to smooth the readings and prevent it from biasing overtime, then I read the IR digital signal from pin 9of the Arduino, after that I prepare the data both x,y,z angels and the IR reading to be sent over serial communication each reading in a line like that "AngleX,AngleX,AngleX,IR", finally I receive data from Unity game via serial to receive the number of zombies killed and the finish game alert and show the results on the LCD.


The second part is the Unity game engine code, I made a very cool game environment and I placed a FPS player game controller that receives the MPU data and the IR from serial via Bluetooth and map the MPU data to the player camera Euler angels, also checks if the IR is triggered so the game shoots by using Physics Ray cast to cast a ray to the zombies and if it hits the zombie the dead anamiation is activated on the zombie 3d model and increase the killed_zombies_counter to 1, then send the killed_zombies_counter on serial to Arduino to be shown on the LCD.

Arduino Code

Unity Code

Full Code Demonstration

code-steps.mp4

Project Integration & Testing

7- Demonstrate with text and visuals how did you integrate the project’s modules together? What are the testing results? (Include a Demo video separately, showing a proof of functionality)

  1. First I tested the circuit alone itself and check it's functioning well.

  2. After I tested the Fabricated parts is ok I taking it apart.

  3. I placed the Arduino & IMU & HC-05 on the bot part and attached them using screws and nuts.

  4. I placed the IR sensor on the front side and attach it with screws and nuts.

  5. I placed the LCD on the top part and attach it with screws and nuts.

  6. I attach the Breadboard and wire the circuit.

  7. I attach also the battery pocket on the side.

  8. Finally I close the gauntlet and wire it and test the whole system and Thanks god it works xD.

circuit test.mp4
full integration.mp4

Sharing & Collaboration

8- Did you ask for feedback? What are the ideas that others have contributed or suggested? What was someone else’s idea that you built upon? How did you help your peers? How did your peers help you?

Yes I take feedback from the guys and girls in the lab including instructors like Amany and Mohaned, they tell me it's very good, especially Mohaned he asks me to video the project for himself and this is the video xD


I helped some of my friends at their projects in fabricating their parts and they do it to me either.

system demo.mp4

Overcoming Challenges

9- When you got stuck, what/who did you turn to? At what point did you have to pause to research or learn more before moving on? What are some mistakes, pitfalls, or challenges that others can avoid if they were doing this project?

I want to thank Mohaned and especially Amany for helping me a lot during the fabricating process.

First I had a problem that I dont have any taps for the parts, that was a problem in assembly so Amany and others in the lab I think Menna told me to make the taps for the design i did it and it works

Second I had a problem in some sketch processing before fabrication Amany helped me using Corel Draw to solve the issues.

Third Mohaned helped me for closing the gauntlet and tested it with me and also take a video of me running the game.

Future Work

10- If you had more time, what is one thing you would change/ Do next in your project?

Make the Gauntlet as a 3D printed parts not Wood xD

Final Project Design Files

Fusion 360 CAD file

Fritzing file

Arduino code file