A couple Dutch tinkerers, with the understanding that many of us already live in Second Life, spliced an exercise bike with a computer. The system now allows a user to control an avatar while getting some real life exercise at the same time.
From the project page:
The first prototypes have been built using conventional hometrainers. These hometrainers are equipped with sensors for measuring velocity and driving direction. Using the same optical sensors also the steering direction is measured. The data is transferred to a PC using the standard PS2 keyboard interface. With a PS2-USB adapter the hometrainer can be connected to a wide variety of systems, (MS Windows, Linux, MAC).
The forward velocity and steering direction are measured using optical sensors which can easily be integrated into the existing hardware. Conversion of sensorsignals to PS2 standard is done using an AVR-RISC microcontroller van Atmel.
The bike steer is equipped with an ‘ET-button®’ (named after a legendary scene in a Spielberg movie). This button is for initiating the flying mode.
Video of developers playing with the system (3MB or 12MB Windows Media file)…
And for those with no patience, a shorter, grainier video on YouTube:
Second Life Fitness…
(hat tip: ScienceRoll)
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