Robot Wars Project and VR Development Tests.

Oh hey there! Surprised at myself for being able to make another post so quickly!

We have a 'Emergent Gaming Technology' module here at uni, which has given me the opportunity to experiment with different hardware! I've chosen to go with the awesome Google Cardboard VR Headset.

I chose this for a variety of reasons:

- Its cheap and accessible to anyone with a smartphone that can run VR apps (AKA have a gyroscope sensor)

- Its easy to develop for, as technically they are just Android built games.

- Its a great entry for VR development, being as I have no previous experience at all.

- Should be fun! Hoping to come up with lots of great ideas.

- The material is easy to customise.

I have already modified my own headset with extra elastic bands to secure my phone while playing, cut a hole out for the camera, as well as strengthening the Velcro tabs with some glue. Alongside printing off and making Realiteers RealControl 'RealTrigger' VR controllers. All made out of cardboard! They work by having the phones camera tracking a QR code attached to the controller. Coupled with headphones, the headstrap and the RealTrigger controller, this makes for a surprisingly decent and immersive experience, for way way WAY less than a Vive, Samsung Gear or the Rift, and thats what I love about it all.

In other news, my Robot Wars inspired game is coming along nicely! I try to do a little bit each time and be productive on it. I have a working arena Pit of Oblivion and Flamepit working, hooked up to some player health UI. I am currently working on weapon systems and have a good overall system I am hoping to attached to most weapons in order to calculate damage. The arena flipper is fiddly, as well as getting robot flippers to actually flip and not just lift, but I'll keep working on it.

All hail the Kingbot Robby! (inspired by a friends reaction to the bot)

I also have a wide variety of prototype 'base' bot designs, inspired by real world machines such as Tombstone, Firestorm and Hypnodisc. I set these up because they give a great playable robot base to build my own designs on, or even recreate them faithfully and experiment.