Handy Bird: Play Flappy Bird by actually flapping your hands using doppler effect

It’s almost too crazy to believe. A web page can bounce sound off your hand and hear changes caused by your movement.

Handy Bird Gif

Play it now here: https://wanderingstan.github.io/handybird/

  • Does not work in Firefox. Works well in Chrome.
  • Sound must be on and maximized. You may hear the high-pitched tone it uses. Best to use built-in laptop speaker.
  • Microphone access must be allowed. It listens to the change in the tone to detect motion.
  • Flap your hand toward your microphone. You may have to Google where it is on your computer.
  • The speaker or microphone on some computers may not be able to handle the 20kHz tone used for the doppler detection.

I was totally amazed by Daniel Rapp’s demo that its possible to detect hand movement using the doppler effect in javascript. Given that I must make everything into a game, Flappy Bird was the obvious choice.
Nebez Briefkani had already created a great javascript version, Floppy Bird. Excellent code in both projects enabled this mash-up.

Github project: https://github.com/wanderingstan/handybird

One thought on “Handy Bird: Play Flappy Bird by actually flapping your hands using doppler effect”

  1. Hi Stan,

    Interesting demo. I try to play this game, however everytime when I start to play it, the bird drops immediately.

    I tried different mobile and laptop, it is the same.

    Do you know why?

    Best regards, Shengping

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