By Gary Whitta https://plus.google.com/u/0/114522811866073303399/posts
Monday, January 23, 2012
World’s largest video game controller
Students create world’s largest video game controller
JANUARY 22, 2012BY MIKE FLACY
While popular console modders like Ben Heckendorn are always looking for ways to make current gaming systems portable, a team of students in the Netherlands went in the opposite direction.
Currently on display at London’s Liverpool Street Station in relation to the release of Guinness Book Of World Records Gamer’s Edition 2012, engineering students Benjamin Allen, Stephen van’t Hof, and Michel Verhulst has created a working, twelve foot long Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) controller that’s 30 times the size of a standard controller. Weighing approximately 265 pounds, the controller requires at least two people to operate both the directional pad and the red “A,B” buttons. According to Allen’s team, the planning phase for the controller took approximately five months, but the controller was constructed in about four weeks. While the buttons can simply be pushed with hands to operate NES games like Super Mario Bros and Tetris, the controller is also strong enough to handle people standing on the giant structure to jump on the buttons similar to a Dance Dance Revolution pad.
Since operating the controller requires vastly more force than a standard NES controller, Allen’s team had to include a light-based system within the $6,000 controller rather than the mesh found on the original controller’s circuit board. When a button is pushed on the huge controller, a beam of light is broken and a sensor feeds the appropriate response into the NES. The controller is built around a steel frame and designed to look identical to the original controller except for one detail. Above the two red buttons on the right side, Allen’s team painted the word “NEStalgia.” The three students built the controller to celebrate the 105th anniversary of their electrical engineering student association at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Other Guinness Book record holders that came to view the enormous NES creation included a Super Mario Kart fanatic that has the record for the fastest lap and the man that hold the record for most Street Fighter competition wins. The event also celebrated the longest video game marathon in the world, a ridiculous 109-hour record set while playing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/students-create-worlds-largest-video-game-controller/
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