Duck Hunt Robotics

We want to make mobile gaming more outdoorsy and engage everybody to be more active with their mobile device! Introduce the most revolutionary robot-human interactive gaming system ever, the Duck Hunt Robotics. For people in our 20s, we are often very nostalgic about the classic Nintendo Duck Hunt Game. Even though it is a great adoption and interesting simulation of the real world hunting activity, the unique excitation of the physical activity cannot be captured. With the advance of new technologies in robotics, mobile, cloud and computer vision, here we took the classic duck hunt game idea even further and pushed the boundary of traditional mobile gaming. With this software and hardware hack, we aim to promote the future of gaming where cyber-physical interaction plays a prominent role, enabled by the synergy of the computing technology, the immerging robotic technology, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Here for our system, the ‘duck’ is a robotic flapping ornithopter (the duck robot) which is radio-controlled locally and cloud-controlled through cloud service (i.e., a device of internet of things). The prototyped gaming app adopts onboard computer vision algorithms to track the flying duck robot. Once the ‘duck’ is aimed, the user ‘shoots’ the target with a touch on the screen. If the shot is on target, the app will send a HTTP request to the cloud server and then web server agent will message the Electric-imp end hardware to command the robot wirelessly to drop and fall. This control of ‘kill’ is through cloud service, thus not limited by range. Specifically for the hardware hack, to incorporate the remote control flapping wing robot with the game, we modified the radio remote of a commercial available flapping wing toy. A Wi-Fi module is connected to the remote, and linked to the cloud server of Electric Imp. This enables the data transfer between the app and the remote. As an add-on to the gaming system, a confetti-popping machine is built to add a more dramatic effect. The machine also incorporates a Wi-Fi module to communicate with the game; a microcontroller (Arduino Leonardo) is used to drive actuators. We utilize a DC motor as actuator to trigger the confetti popper, however, different objects can be adapted to the system. Specifically for the software hack, the GUI is concise yet elegant. It features a single and multiplayer mode, which is perfect for partying or family reunion. Each player, the duck hunter in the game, can compete with others, sync score in the cloud and share achievements in the social network (future work). When the player is in the sniper mode, DuckHunterIMAX uses computer vision and mobile computing techniques, such as CamShift and Dominant Color Domain (DCD) feature to track interesting object, the duck robot in this case. If the duck is within a certain range of the target in the shooting view, it will be detected. Each player has 3 chances (bullets) to hunt the duck. If the hunter shots the duck, a trigger signal will be sent to Electrical Imp cloud, which later will be used to communicate with the Arduino based Hackathon badge to hack the robot controller. Then, Duck robot remote controller will be commanded to cut off. Consequently and sadly, the duck is falling from the sky. Code and firmware available at https://github.com/air23zj/DuckHuntRobotics