Chaotic Moon Labs' Board of Awesomeness: a Motorized Kinect Controlled Longboard
Capital of Nasty, an Electronic Magazine - ISSN 1482-0471
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 21:00 (6330/59)
The Board of Awesomeness is a Microsoft Kinect SDK controlled longboard powered by an single-wheel drive and powered by an 800 watt motor and 36 volt battery, which give the board a top speed of 32 MPH. You can accelerate and decelerate by using your hands.
From the article on The Verge:
The tablet on the base of the board shows a live feed of what the Kinect sees, and also displays the "hitbox," which is similar to the strikezone in baseball. When the Kinect detects your hand inside the hitbox, the board begins to accelerate. Simply move your hand toward the Kinect to accelerate and pull it away to decelerate. For safety, there's a small metal kill-switch that sits on the top of the board. Like a dead man's switch, if you don't maintain constant pressure on it, the power will be disabled and the board will stop. Oh and by the way, there's no brakes. Surprisingly, no Kinect software hacks are used in this setup, though admittedly, the Kinect's power cord was stripped to attach it to the battery.
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