My undergrad senior project was to build a game chair where we strapped ourselves into a seat we pulled from a totaled Ford Probe, and use 2 joysticks (one on each armrest) to control the ship is Descent. We had to static mount a pair if very heavy 21" or 22" CRTs, which was annoying.
We used 2 pneumatic cylinders and a U-joint to move the chair so it rotated on 2 axes. I now know that hydraulics would have let us stop in the middle, but that did not occur to me at the time. The chair still moved a lot, banged around, and generally made a lot of noise.
It was great fun to strap a small student into the chair and let them start playing. It was all OK until they got hit from behind with the first missile, and their space ship started spinning, and the chair started massive movements. Then they started high-pitched screaming like in the movie "Jaws." After 90 seconds, they were having the time of their lives shooting up alien-hacked mining equipment that had become ersatz weapons.
It only worked with small students because we lacked large enough pneumatics, and because the chair rotated about an axis below the chair, so that it would flop one way or another and not have the power to right itself id we strapped in a large (200 lbs) student.
We used 2 pneumatic cylinders and a U-joint to move the chair so it rotated on 2 axes. I now know that hydraulics would have let us stop in the middle, but that did not occur to me at the time. The chair still moved a lot, banged around, and generally made a lot of noise.
It was great fun to strap a small student into the chair and let them start playing. It was all OK until they got hit from behind with the first missile, and their space ship started spinning, and the chair started massive movements. Then they started high-pitched screaming like in the movie "Jaws." After 90 seconds, they were having the time of their lives shooting up alien-hacked mining equipment that had become ersatz weapons.
It only worked with small students because we lacked large enough pneumatics, and because the chair rotated about an axis below the chair, so that it would flop one way or another and not have the power to right itself id we strapped in a large (200 lbs) student.
Those were good times.