Super Mario Bros. 3 being controlled by muscle power alone? It’s the real deal folks; thanks to the USB Biofeedback Game Controller by Advancer Technologies.
Two buttons and a crossed-shaped d-pad. Who would of imagined that almost three decades after the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System, and it’s simplified controlled method, that gamers would be playing their videogames with the touch of a finger, the swinging of an arm, or by dancing up-and-down like a happy kid in a bouncy-castle.
And perhaps soon enough dear readers, we’ll all be playing such future hits as Halo 8 or Final Fantasy XX (that’s 20) with our own muscles. You know, the fleshy stuff in our bodies that seldom gets much use because of our cubical-intrenched, stare at a computer screen all day, lives. (If this sentence were a Tweet, I would end it with the hashtag: #firstworldproblems.)
That’s because Advancer Technologies, a company that develops and provides biomedical hardware — muscle sensors & EMG circuit kits — to both hobbyists and professionals, has just engineered the USB Biofeedback Game Controller, a little device that reads the electrical-impulses from specific muscles to control a videogame character on screen. Which in this case, so happens to be Nintendo’s famous plumber in Super Mario Bros. 3.
Just think how ripped this guy would be if he had reached and beaten the airship level before entering World 8, certainly no cake-walk; his arms would probably be thicker than 1,000 year-old giant sequoias!
Now, sure, displaying such fascinating tech on a videogame might seem a little foolish (I don’t think so), but the USB Biofeedback Game Controller is actually cultivating research in the study to treating patients with neuromuscular disease or injury. Which is an admirable cause I fully support, plus if videogames are it’s testing grounds, then it’s two, two, two great things in one!
You can even build the USB Biofeedback Game Controller with the set of directions given generously by Advancer Technologies themselves. It will take some mean soldering iron talents on your part, but if you can follow the step-by-step directions listed here — in no time will you be flexing your gamer skills, literally!
There’s an awesome pride in completing a do-it-yourself project, and these two — DIY Xbox 360 Aquarium Mod & the Treasure Finder — happen to be quite particularly awesome. Check them out.
