Zombie Tag!

The Zombie Sensors are alive! Yes, it's been a very long time since my last post. I had a huge setback with the sensors several months ago and little time to fix them. But when I got a call from the City of Walnut asking me to provide laser tag for their Halloween Zombie Tag maze - I had to get the sensors working again. Thankfully this was a paid job, so I was able to find the time to bring the sensor back to life.  BTW, here is a video of the walk through of the Zombie Tag event...


In my last post, I had built a reflow oven which will allow me to assemble several sensors at one time. Unfortunately, after populating 100 boards I had an 80% failure rate on all of my assembled sensors! AAARRRGGG!!! After all of that time - after all of that effort - after all of that money spent - an 80% failure rate on everything was a really tough blow to this project. I spent more time testing everything, but I couldn't figure out what went wrong. I had to put the project on hold.

Thankfully my pal Brian Farley came to my rescue and examined everything and came to the conclusion that the reflow process caused micro traces on the MCU that caused it to fail. So he came up with a solution that involved a lot of soldering and re-working each PCB board. It finally took me a month of work, but I was able to get 24 Zombie Sensors to work reliably for the City of Walnut Zombie Tag event. And after two evenings of heavy use, the sensors performed great! I had no failures and they functioned as intended.

So where do I go from here? I know a lot of people would like to purchase these sensors. I have parts to assemble several more. Unfortunately they will take a lot of time to get functioning properly and even more time to test to make sure all of the micro-traces are gone. If/when I sell them. I want to make sure they operate as intended. So until then, stay tuned!

Reflow Oven Assembled!

I have found a good speaker replacement for the Zombie Sensor and hope to be making more soon. In the past, Dustin Westaby has graciously agreed to put these together. But unfortunatly he does not have the time to make any more. So I'll be taking on the task. Since some of the parts include tiny SMD parts, I've decided to construct my own Reflow Oven.

Zombie Limbo

Just a quick update on things. Regarding the Zombie Sensor; I have a lot of the parts to make more units, except for the speaker. The piezo speaker had been on backorder from Mouser for several months now. I've been trying to find a replacement, with no luck. The original part can be found HERE.

All of the replacement candidates tested are not as loud as the original part. The design of the original part is a bit different - and the video below shows what I'm up against. 

If anyone has ideas on ways to solve this, please email me at "rwb134" using Google's fine e-mail service. I really want to get more of these made, especially so I can have them ready in time for TagFest 2015 this year.  Keep your fingers crossed.

The Future

Thanks to everyone who has expressed their excitement and enthusiasm for the projects Dustin and I have been working on. The Zombie Sensor, NOMAD and the Echo Base are all projects we're committed to and extremely excited about.

Unfortunately the processor we have been working with, the Atmel ATmega328u (the one used in the popular Arduino Uno series) just doesn't have the horsepower and specs we need. The vision we have for everything is bigger than what this processor can handle.

Zombies Sensors - Sold Out!

Well that didn't take long! Our first batch of Zombie Sensors is now sold out - or at least spoken for.

So where we're at now, these orders still need to be paid for. I'll be working to pack them up and get shipping quotes and finally issuing invoices to the customers. If any orders don't get paid - I'll put the sensors back up for sale.

For those of you who missed out and still want to purchase the Zombie Sensor - please e-mail me at rwb134@gmail.com and I'll put you on the waiting list. This will be very helpful to know how many more sensors to make. So if you want one, please don't be shy. Thanks again everyone!

Now Taking International Orders!

I have 40 Zombie Sensors available for order and I'm now opening it up to international customers!

These sensors, normally $20, are on an introductory sale of $15 each (plus shipping & handling)!

I've gotten a lot of request from other countries and these will be sold on a first come first serve basis. For more details, please visit this link.

ZOMBIE SENSOR - NOW ON SALE!!!

Thank you all for your patience - and yes, the wait is over! I now have 40 ZOMBIE SENSORS MKii available for sale! I'll be offering these at the fantastic TagFest 2014 price of $15 each!

These sensors have been enhanced with new features not seen anywhere else. With any LTTO tagger, you can mass-program multiple sensors at one time and you can customize the sensors to your liking. New features in the MKII are...

Delays, Grrr....

Unfortunately we're experiencing delays. I know there's a lot of you who are wanting to get your hands on some of the items we've shown here, but please bear with me. I had ordered a new programmer that's not working properly (had hoped this would speed up the process) - working now to get this solved.  Plus the time I can devote to these projects has been really sparse due to other personal responsibilities. In the meantime I appreciate your patience.

Zombie Sensor MKII

After much trial and error, I've finally put together a TRAINING VIDEO that goes over virtually ALL of the nifty cool features of the brand spanking new ZOMBIE SENSOR MARK II!!!  I've worked long and hard getting the software ready and it seems like all of the bugs are worked out of it. We used these sensors at the 2014 TAGFEST this past July. After much play-testing, I found ways to improve the operation.  The biggest challenge was finding a way to change modes of several of these sensors at once. And thanks to Ryan "Izzy" Bales's genius suggestion, I now have a fantastic method for controlling several Zombie Sensors at the same time.

Updating

Back from TagFest 2014 this year and it was awesome! We were at a new location this year that did not disappoint. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a TagFest, you need to do so at least once in your life. We played so many games, both conventional and unconventional -  some involving a golf cart to act as a tank and other great night games called "THING", "WEREWOLVES", and of course "ZOMBIES"!

SALE OPPORTUNITY!

At TagFest 2014 this year, we'll be making, for the first time, some of our products available for sale!

First up is the new Zombie Sensor MKII! I'll have about 50 of these and can be purchase for $15 each.  These sensors can be operated in three modes and can accept tags from LTTO, LTX and LTAR while rejecting beacon noise. Mega Tags does multiple points worth of damage, depending on the mode you're playing. We will be play testing these at night, so if you're in the area, come by and check them out!

We will also be selling prototypes of the long awaited NOMAD MKII this year! The NOMAD is a portable, hand-held hosting unit for LTTO/LTX & LTAR games. These will be fully functional units but they are still prototypes since we are still putting the final touches on the final case design/engineering. The NOMAD prototypes will be on sale for the special TagFest price of $100. However we will only have about 5 of them on hand. The final product, when they are ready, will be sold for $175.  Users who get the prototype and want to upgrade them to the final case design will have this option. The cost for this upgrade has yet to be determined.

All items will ONLY be sold to TagFest participants.

LTAR and LTTO are Friends!

I made a discovery today that if you host LTAR guns with the NOMAD in the LTAR-only mode (this will allow you to make any LTAR-only attribute changes you wish, such as no beacons, auto reload, receive ammo and/or shields) IT CAN interact with LTTO normal hosted games!  Meaning the LTAR and the LTTO gear will each receive tags from each other! This opens the door up to even more great customizable games.  This video demonstrates how it works.

NOMAD MKII OVERVIEW VIDEO

Grab yourself some popcorn and poprocks ladies and gents, here is a video that gives you an overview of everything the NOMAD MKII can do. And it's a lot! This video is an HOUR LONG! (The NOMAD is a hand-held portable hosting unit with many additional features.)  So for the next hour you can either re-watch the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season finale - or the this epic masterpiece that unveils the numerous features of the NOMAD MKII!

NOMAD MARK II

I know this blog has been quiet, but I have been VERY busy working out the kinks on the latest Zombie sensor AND the new NOMAD MkII. And I must say for the NOMAD, this little device is simply AMAZING! I can't wait to show it off to you all.

What is the NOMAD? It's a portable, hand-held device that can be used for hosting LTTO, LTX and LTAR games without needing to be attached to a computer.  It does hosting and a ton of extra features crammed into a tiny unit.  Think of it as the Lazer Tag GameMaster's Swiss Army Knife. Yes, it's been a long wait, but trust me, it will be worth it.

PODCAST!

One of the great things about working on the Arduino platform is having access to a TON of help on the internet. When I started these projects over a year ago, I really knew nothing about programming and hardware. I only had a vision and a passion to make certain devices that would be compatible with the Lazer Tag gear I'm so heavily invested in. So I searched the web and taught myself through many of the great on-line tutorials recources that's out there.

PROJECT UPDATES

Even thought it's been quite here on my blog, I've been busily working on updating all of my projects
- which has been actually pretty intense. So I'd thought I'd take a quick timeout from coding on the Arduino to bring everyone up to speed.

ZOMBIE SENSOR - This project has been known as the FERAL IR SENSOR - it will get a formal name change soon.  Last summer the "Mark I" version was used extensively at TagFest. I've been working on some updates to help improve upon the "Mark I" and it's looking really nice. I'll be making an announcement soon about this, along with a video to show off what's different.

TAGFEST 2014!!!

The dates for TagFest 2014 has been set for July 10 - 12 near Eugene Oregon. TagFest is a multi-day Lazer Tag event where we play in the Oregon woods. Come and have fun and meet other Lazer Tag enthusiasts. Sign up here on the official Facebook page.  For more information and to ask questions, visit this Facebook page.

Lazer Swarm Command Center

If you are looking for a way to do computerized hosting of complicated Lazer Tag games, then check out Riley McArdle's site, Lazer Swarm.  He has the Lazer Swarm Command Center. This hooks up to a laptop to create fully customizable games and is now on sale for $150. Here's a demonstration video...

ZZLT LTAR DISPLAY

Here is another great display option for the the LTAR. This actually ties into the communication lines of the LTAR and provides feedback for TAGS, SHIELDS & AMMOM - all for only $25.

Check it out...

ZZLT LTAR DISPLAY

LTAR Display - ON SALE!!

If you're into the LTAR then you'll want to check this out. Imagine adding a digital display! These kits are now available. Full instructions and details are here...

http://www.westaby.net/2013/12/ltar-display/