It eats LTXs for Breakfast

I've been given the green light by "German", one of our players with a knack for electronics, to fill you all in on a breakthrough for custom laser tag blasters.  By utilizing an Arduino to run the system, we are on track to successfully make a board that is compatible with LTTO and LTX blasters.  As if that news wasn't good enough for you, the prototype's platform is a Nerf Longstrike shell!

These are pictures of an in-development, Arduino-run, blaster that can successfully land tags on LTXs in any Team Mode and LTTO blasters.  We were only able to test it in Solo Mode with LTTO for the time being since sensors have not been completed for this blaster yet.  Everything about the LTX and LTTO blasters can be replicated or altered, giving us complete control over the blaster's features.  Once the sensors are completed and a sound card is installed, this blaster's software will allow it to have whatever settings we can think of.  From custom sound effects to firing rate, everything can be adjusted.

Currently, the blaster is hitting as fast as an LTTO Blaster or LTX can recieve hits.  A 2 second duration pull on the trigger leaves either blaster with their hits completely depleted (once they catch up with themselves registering all those hits!).  Obviously with the ability to set anything, we could easily create what most would call a "God Gun", but that is far from our intent.  At the core of this development is the goal to develop unique blasters in custom shells that have adjustable settings.  However, with the ability to annihilate anyone on site, we now also have an "Admin Mode" protocol.  If someone is cheating (ie hiding their blaster behind something or covering their sensor), an administrator could swtich to "Admin Mode" and after a quick burst of IR death, could take that user out of the game.  Obviously those entrusted with the Admin Mode would only be using this in situations that called for it's usage and wouldn't abuse it's power and go on a killing spree.

Still, this is exciting for development of future blasters for our group.  This is the same system that we built Laser Challenge compatible blasters for, which means that anything we build with the Arduino at it's core can be set to be used for either system.  We will explore other possibilities to replicate the features of other laser tag systems in the future, but since the OLCA mainly uses LC and LT systems, we're set for now.

I'll keep you posted on further work of the sensor system and of the Arduino's continued development with our group.  These are NOT being produced for sale or production of any sort.  It's simply our way of building two taggers in one so we can use one blaster for the various systems we use instead of having to make a custom blaster for each one.