Control games by moving your head

Josh Blodwell shows you how to use your head to move the camera in flight sims and driving games - all for the price of a few LEDs.

Realistic scenery and sophisticated handling models go a long way to making sure that flight sims and driving games feel authentic, but unless you have a video wall surrounding your computer, your view from the cockpit will be locked dead ahead.

Of course, there are various ways to get around this. Historically, you'd have bought an expensive flight stick with a hat switch to manually change the view. This would let you look around for the plane that was shooting at you, but any sense of immersion would immediately be destroyed. There's no need to fiddle with hat switches or second joysticks if you use head-tracking software, though, and you can now make your own head-tracking setup using FreeTrack software for less than £10.

You'll probably already have some of the parts to build your own head-tracking cap. You'll need a standard baseball cap, a wire coat hanger, some epoxy, a soldering iron and solder, and a webcam. You'll also need to pay a visit to Maplin to pick up LEDs, resistors and bell wire, as well as a toggle switch and a battery holder.

We recommend buying 5mm red or infrared LEDs. You can then use the LED calculator at www.free-track.net/english/hardware/calcled, to calculate the resistors you need for your battery pack. Alternatively, you can avoid the need for resistors for 5V LEDs altogether by using two AAA 3V batteries, which is what we used for this feature.

What you need

•    Three 5V red LEDs (part number CK46A from www.maplin.co.uk)

•    3V battery clip (part number JB83E from www.maplin.co.uk)

•    Bell wire (part number XS92A from www.maplin.co.uk)

•    Toggle switch (part number FH97F from www.maplin.co.uk)

•    Quick-response webcam

•    Two AAA batteries

•    Wire coat hanger

•    Mole grip or pliers

•    Epoxy

•    Baseball cap

•    Soldering iron and solder

•    Heatshrink