September 26, 2018
Our assignment for week 4 of Intro to Physical Computing was to use the things we learned (basic circuits, digital input/output, analog input/output, etc) to build a device. I decided to build a game based on sumo wrestling that could use speakers from the junk shelf. Like the sport, the goal of the game is to knock your opponent’s piece out of the ring.
The game requires analog inputs from potentiometers and emits a tone using the Arduino’s digital outputs to speakers. When the player uses the potentiometer, the Arduino receives the change in input and maps it to a different note value (note values based on the tone melody Arduino tutorial) that is then emitted as a tone sound through the speakers. Fabricating the container the enclosure and control panel for the game also used skills I learned in Intro to Fabrication and for I’ll write a blog post that covers the fabrication process for this project.
I researched if an Arduino could emit sound from two speakers at once using
tone(), but because the function works on the Arduino’s timer, I opted to toggle the sound between the speakers using
noTone() (link to code). Then I drew up a circuit that worked with the code.
I built my first prototype to test these features:
Ben Light recommended I try using a latex glove as my first surface.
The prototype showed that the speaker could move a piece — a very light, ball shaped piece (video). I then fabricated a ring using cardboard.
The ring kind of worked, but testing it (video) and collecting feedback from my classmate Mark indicated a square frame with a round ring would allow the pieces to move more easily.
Putting together the next version with a proper control panel for the electrical components meant I would have to solder the potentiometers, switch, and LED. So I referred to the ITP guide and Lady Ada resources on soldering.
Once the components had wires soldered to them and the ring/control panel was fabricated, the game came together.
Here is a video of two of my classmates playing.
Some thoughts I had if I continue to iterate on this idea:
A perpetual work in progress blog documentating my NYU ITP projects. Words are my own.