I’m starting a series of fun build logs for a project I’ve been researching: building a Stewart platform.
Stewart platforms have a wide range of applications, from flight and racing simulators to industrial systems used for transferring personnel between offshore structures and vessels.
I figured the best place to start was with the smallest possible version of the problem: can I reliably exchange information between the Unity game engine and a microcontroller?
I’ll admit, I thought this part would be a piece of cake, but there were quite a few wrinkles to iron out. Latency and synchronization, colour and brightness calibration, deciding where colour interpolation should be processed... all just to sync some cool disco colours between Unity and an Arduino.
It ended up being a great little exercise, and I learned a lot more from the problems than I expected.
Next week, I’m going to try sending more than colour: actual 3D motion data.
Stay tuned!