Quad Sim

Oct 2015

Rutgers University

Project Description

QuadSim was the first project I worked on in a hackathon. It served as a pivotal learning experience. The primary objective of this project was to get familiar Microsoft's Kinect developer kit and harness its capabilities to craft an intuitive game. Collaborating closely with my team, we opted to design a Quadcopter simulator wherein hand movements determined yaw, pitch, roll, and throttle speed. Leveraging the Unity game engine, we seamlessly interfaced with the sensor, exerting precise control over all simulator components. The sensor adeptly captured the angles of the player's hands, providing an immersive experience akin to operating an airplane's control wheel.

My Role

What excited me about this project was the opportunity to apply my mechanical design and simulation expertise to develop a fundamental simulator. The project involved designing models using Autodesk Inventor and applying textures through Blender. Significantly, this endeavor marked my inaugural collaboration within a team dedicated to a purely software-based application. This experience underscored the importance of creating modular code for efficient development. Moreover, my team and I had the privilege of being mentored by seasoned software developers from Microsoft, providing invaluable insights into the intricacies of the Kinect sensor.

Knowledge, Skills and Abillities

  • CAD
  • UNITY
  • Microsoft Kinect

Goals, Success Factors

  • Have a complete project

Challenges

  • Working with the Kinect
  • Understanding how to work with skeleton data

Reflection

The project achieved notable recognition by winning the Company API prize from Microsoft at the HACK RU hackathon hosted at Rutgers University. Consequently, my team and I had the privilege of engaging with numerous representatives from various companies, soliciting their valuable opinions and feedback on our project. Our project's source code is publicly accessible on the team's GitHub repository.