Making a Buzz wire game with Arduino Uno
Abstract
In this project, a different approach has been made on a classic buzz-wire game, which makes the game even more interesting and challenging to play. Unlike the classic buzz-wire game in which a player, with a steady hand, has to complete the wired loop without touching it to the handle, our buzz-wire game is programmed in such a way that a player can play a challenging mode which involves the countdown or a time limit to complete the game. The sound of the countdown with the flashing of LED makes the game even more challenging and interesting in a way. The playing hardware-platform is very similar to that of the classical buzz-wire game but the circuit involving buzzers or speakers, LED, resistors and a button is little complicated. We used the Arduino Uno microcontroller board and Arduino programming platform to manipulate the activity of each element in the circuit to achieve the game we wanted.
Design process
We wanted to create a project that was easy to make and fun to play with. We stumbled upon a couple of ideas including tic-tac-toe, rock-scissors-paper and buzzwire game. We decided to move forward with the buzz-wire game because of its simplicity in terms of design and yet compexity of its actual gameplay.
This is the circuit diagram we came up with in our design process.
State Diagram
In order to work out the design and circuit, a state diagram was necessary to make sure the project runs just the way we wanted.
How our design came together
The Full Story
First, we took idea from 'Makeuseof.com' to create our own version of the buzz-wire game with few improvisations. The concept was well described in the website. So, taking the idea as a base framework, we went on creating a state diagram about how our buzz-wire game is going to work. Then, we created a circuit diagram on tinkercad to figure out where all the components go and find the conncections between all those parts and how it will come together as the buzz-wire game. We used the same website for our codes. Getting the base code to work on was the best thing we encountered in our process of making the buzz-wire game. So, we improvised the code to create our own version of the game with two different playing styles that we originally thought of. After making a prototype on tinkercad, it was fairly easy to come up with our actual buzz-wire game.
What went wrong
We got the circuit diagrams and the code from the Website, 'makeofuse.com'. But when built up everything and compiled it with the Arduino program, nothing happened, except the music that kept on playing. It was very hard to figure out what went wrong in the code, as we were positive about our circuit diagram. We got stuck in the code for about a week, leaving us hopeless in the project. Even though at last we goth the our project working, we could not get to work out one of our outputs, the LED display.
What went right
Well, then we decided to write the code ourselves. To make the code easy, we omitted the display part. Then using the knowledge of programming Arduino's inputs and outputs that we learnt from the Arduino program course and with help of research regarding different functions of Arduino code , we were finally able to get the project right. Finally,we were able to work out the project.
Work Cited
Coburn, Joe. “Make a Buzz Wire Game With an Arduino.” MakeUseOf, 21 Sept. 2016, www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-buzz-wire-game-arduino/.
Contraptions, Krazy. “How To Make A Simple Buzz Wire Game.” YouTube, YouTube, 11 July 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry_qsocBwrU.