By North Street Labs
We first encountered the Centrifury at World Maker in New York when Digi team members, Liz and Karen, decided to take Centrifury for a spin.
This game has been known to inspire fear in the eyes of men. It’s a test of willpower and endurance. After strapping in you hold the button in unison with your opponent. Once the game begins it builds speed. As the game progresses you experience more G-forces, making it more challenging as you fight to hold down the button. Whoever can hold on the longest wins. This creates approximately the same g-forces as a Top Fuel Dragster, but sustained. So far we have clocked this up to 4.3Gs. It has the potential to do more; we just haven’t found two competitors that can hold on long enough.
The CentriFury is constructed from tube and pipe steel. The chairs and seatbelts were recycled from the junkyard and reupholstered. Power came from an axle of a 4 person golf cart and two deep cycle 12v batteries. The wheel drives a plywood base to create the spinning action. We used a Victor 885 motor controller to control the motor. A wireless setup was used to connect the buttons to the motor using a Zigbee wireless pair and two arduinos controlling several relays as well. The buttons are secured in two etched acrylic signs. LEDs are used to light up the signs and display the winner. The signs were designed and cut on our homebuilt CNC machine. Two 99 cent pool noodles were used to complete the build.