Connect Four - Given up :-)

thingiverse

When we made our TicTacToeGame in the fablab ( http://hci.rwth-aachen.de/fablab ) of the RWTH-Aachen, we where aware of the limited gameplay. A game, which works a little bit better is known as "Connect Four". Using integrated circuits as multiplexer, it would be possible to light up a bigger matrix than 3 by 3, which makes a four win scenario possible. Using the standard arduino cube example, you can make a bigger one with a four-gamefields width, heigth and depth with 3 leds in each gamefield for the different players (using the three "cheap" colors red, green and yellow, this makes six player possible with one or two colors and all three colors for active-gamefield). Working with two 4 to 16 multiplexer, you can add some status displays in the bottom, like some kind of highscore and the actual game options (e.g. actual count of player, three or four wins, gravity on or off (if you can place your "stone" everywhere or only on top of other "stones"), if winning combinations disappears and some kind of timeout for the player). The controller for the player has three buttons for the x-, y-, and z-axis, which are colormapped to improve the mapping for the player. These colors are also lighten as axis in the same color in the gamefield, with the intersection point between the different axis as active gamefield. This can be accepted with a fourth button or moved along the axis with the according buttons. The different buttons have different series resistor and are connected with a analog input of the arduino for the read-out. Small Update (after some years :-) The controller for the player was first reduced to be just a pcb, and later replaced to integrated buttons on the side and top of the "gamefield". The brain of the game was then replaced by the Big_Mainboard_A, produced with the pcb-mill in the fablab, and later updated to the B-version: The first attempt, where an analogue readout is needed for each button, was way to slow, for the second attempt each button is multiplexed like the leds, which accelerates readout and simplified the logic. But it with programming and connecting all the lines it becomes clear, that a little more thinking through beforehand would have been better: The multiplexed leds are, of course, just 1/16 as bright as normal, and expanding the I/O outputs of the micro controller with, for example, I2C output expanders to adress each led for themselve would be far better. The best way would be to use modern intelligent leds, where you just need to connect VCC, GND and two serial ports for each rgb led with the next one. Can't therefore say it's work in progress anymore, just a (at leat possible to blink) cube which collects dusts on the shelf :-) Instructions The Bauteile.ps is cutted and engraved with a lasercutter (red is engraving, black cutting) in different materials: The first four pages in 2mm-acrylic glas, the next in leather, and the last three in wood (maybe not the 4mm wood as we used, but a thinner one) The acrylic glas parts from page one and two are then populated with the leds and connected by wire, within the part and with the other three. The other acrylic glas parts are for the top cover and the side walls. They should fit together without glue. The wooden parts are then glued together, one 1m woodshaft with a diameter of 2cm is cut into 25cm pieces, which serves as columns in the four edges. There are two big parts which are top and bottom, two slightly smaller parts, one engraved (the second from top and a border as second from bottom. The next smaller parts are used as third layer from top (with the eigth holes) and bottom (border).Between both glued-together top and bottom serves the engraved rectangles and some of the smaler ones as sidewalls., which are later populated with the cables of the player controller and the control switches. Top and bottom are decorated with corinth capitals, thanks to the fablab 3d-printer and http://www.sharecg.com/v/22578/3D-Model/Corinthian-Colum , which can easiliy be modified by shrinking to the right size and "adding" a 2cm hole for the column. The whole wood is later etched to a nicer color (which needs another layer and is not finished yet). The controller should be made by the rounded rectangles. The first one with for holes is used on top as place for the buttons, the second with a big cut and drills for the button-pins is used for the electric cable and the third one with the slot holds the leather, which is engraved with the lasercutter, colored and wrapped around the controller, the endings stuffed into the slot - this has also to be done yet (I don't trust the artificial leather to be pvc-free and don't want to destroy the lasercutter :-). Therefore, later a pcb-version (with the additional benefit, that it is smaller) was used, before aborting this controller-for-each-player version and switiching to buttons on the cube, mostly not to need analogue readouts anymore. The shield-file contains a first drawing for the arduino shield with another 3 to 8 ic for the controller triggering, but this can be also done by one of the 4 to 16 ic - still work-in-progress, too. The latest version (Mainboard_B) uses integrated buttons in the sides, which are connected to one multiplexer/driver as powersource and all together to a single input pin for evaluation, the led matrix to a second multiplexer/driver combination, and both multiplexer are steered parallel.