Motion or gesture controlled gaming is cool no doubt – … until you start playing racing games.

Let’s face it, waving your arms around in front of your Xbox360 Kinect or wiggling that Wii Mote and tilting the crap out of your iPhone might be fun for the first ten minutes. But seriously you can’t play a descent race car or motocycle simulation racing game that way. It just does not give you enough control and is often not accurate enough.

I am not a big handheld gamer – actually I am not much of a gamer lately at all. I am still waiting for the nerve feedback system or the Equilibrium attachment that you stick in your ear so you can experience true motion in games. What’s really missing in racing games though is that kick in the guts, that “oh my god” my head is falling off during cornering and that rare sensation when shifting gears becomes a work out during extreme acceleration. The little rumble of the force feedback controller has a long ways to go…

Anyway, back to the problem on hand. Racing games are fun and motion controls suck.
Solution: Build a Steering Wheel for the iPhone or iPod. Thank god for Lego Technic…

Racing Steering Wheel and and iPhone/iPod Device Holder Front View:

Racing Steering Wheel and and iPhone/iPod Device Holder Side View:

Racing Steering Wheel and and iPhone/iPod Device Holder Rear View:

I tried different size steering wheels – bigger ones don’t look as good but tend to offer more control. Another advantage of using Lego Technic to Prototype this is that I am able to change the gear ratio as well.

Some of you may remember the old Sega “Hang On” Arcade Game – hint the one with the cool full size red bike.
Anyways that inspired my iPhone Motocycle simulator attachment. Not fancy, but makes me smile and works rather well ..just to bad it is not red and they don’t have a port of “Hang On” in the App store.

And of course the whole steering stand motion unit or whatever it should be called can also be used as Surfboard, Snowboard or Skateboard game simulator.

What’s next?
The current setup makes it a bit hard to use the touchscreen while driving. Most racing games offer some sort of acceleration or brake assist but those are limited and a bit lame. I will revisit the project and figure out a way to add gas and brake pedals. Of course the tricky part is that the entire screen moves and the contact (touch) points for gas and brakes move up and down. …we’ll figure it out.