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Exercise games such as Ring Fit Adventure and Fit Boxing are popular on Nintendo Switch, but you may also want to exercise on Mario Kart. Hardware hacker Mike Choi has created a mechanism to make such a wish come true. You can actually operate Mario Kart by combining a commercially available exercise bike and Ring-Con.
This Mike Choi, who has a small number of YouTube subscribers and Twitter followers, can be said to be almost unknown, but the person who created Flip Grip that can hold the Nintendo Switch vertically before. Although it is a product that competes with ideas, it is a main business engineer who has the technology to realize it.
Labo Fit Adventure Kart made by Mr. Choi sets Joy-Con to Ring-Con and plays Mario Kart while rowing an exercise bike. Although it is covered with cardboard, the exercise bike itself is a commercially available one without modification. An optical sensor that measures the number of revolutions of the pedal is attached to this, and the signal is sent to the self-made module TAPBO attached to the Ring-Con.
TAPBO is a small robot with two arms that receives a signal from an exercise bike and presses the accelerator button (X button) when it reaches a certain speed. The other arm is a mechanism that detects the pushing motion of Ring-Con and pushes the SL button that uses the item.
It has been used for about 2 months already, and it can be used without problems. However, you can only operate the steering wheel and items by Ring-Con, and the accelerator to pedal, so you can not brake or drift. It’s a disadvantage to play seriously, but you can think of it as an exercise.
Unfortunately, there are no plans to put it on the market, just a concept. Even if it is on the market, there are problems such as not being able to grip the handlebar of the exercise bike (usually not recommended by the manufacturer), but with the support of Mario Kart, the accelerator operation is possible only while stepping on like Ring Fit Adventure You should be able to do it. It all depends on Nintendo, but the movement seems to have a positive effect on the mental side, and I would like to expect future support.
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