Daily DIY

This vid's been making the rounds, featuring an unusual method for controlling old school games - theremin. Yup, theremin. From the video's desciption -

The sound from the theremin is split into its frequency and amplitude components in real time, which are then mapped to values in a linear scale representing the X and Y axis. Pitch becomes horizontal control, and Volume becomes vertical control.
The X and Y scales are then cut up into different zones. In this case, Left; Right and dead zones for the horizontal, and a single trigger and dead zone for the vertical.

The trigger zones are then mapped onto a virtual joystick hooked into an emulator.

The end result is a fairly usable input control for playing games like mario. The bars give the much needed visual feedback as to how "in tune" you are, so you have a better feel of where the trigger points are.

Very strange to see such a nicey-nice theremin perform dead-simple functionality, but fun is fun, right? If it were me, I'd get that thing hooked up to a PS2 dual-shock asap!

a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/06/super_mario_theremin_control.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/06/super_mario_theremin_control.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" / Permalink/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/06/super_mario_theremin_control.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890#comments" /Comments/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/gaming/?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more articles in Gaming/a | a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=blog.makezine.com%2Farchive%2F2009%2F06%2Fsuper_mario_theremin_control.htmltitle=Super%20Mario%20Theremin%20controlbodytext=%20This%20vid%26apos%3Bs%20been%20making%20the%20rounds%2C%20featuring%20an%20unusual%20method%20for%20controlling%20old%20school%20games%20-%20theremin.%20Yup%2C%20theremin.%20From%20the%20video%26apos%3Bs%20desciption%20-The%20sound%20from%20the%20theremin%20is%20split%20into%20its%20frequency%20and%20amplitude%20components%20in%20real%20time%2C.topic=tech_news" /Digg this!/a Source: MAKE Magazine