The Final Project

Net Tosser

The final project for our class consisted of making a game that utilizes the skills we've developed over the course of this summer term. I've decided to recreate the classic basketball arcade machine using parts of my Arduino kit, Arduino.cc, SystemLink, and LabView. On top of implementing the software required for this project, the main challenge will be creating a physical casing for all of the components in order for the user experience to run smoothly.

3 Part Project

Part 1: Storyboard

The storyboard (made on Adobe Illustrator) is shown below. On the left is a sketch of the entire project. Players place the contraption on a chair or against a wall. To start the game, players first configure settings in LabView, such as the name to be displayed on the scoreboard, and the time allowed. Then they hit the start and and begin throwing the given ball (probably a squash ball or ping-pong ball due to availability) at the hoop. If the ball goes through the hoop, the ultrasonic sensors (shown in turquoise) detects the object and ticks up the player's "score". The ball slides down the chute back towards the player for retrieval. The LED will flash on each successful point. As the timer runs, a servo motor will control a timer arm (shown in red) that will slowly tick down. Once time runs out, the player's score will be displayed on a SystemLink dashboard, along with the current record score.

Please ignore the terrible storyboard name :)

Part 2: Physical Construction

Due to the planning done with the storyboard above, construction was fairly straightforward. I was able to procure a few large thick sheets of cardboard, as well as the core of a roll of packing tape. This core was the "basket", as it was a good size for the ping-pong ball used; it wasn't too small that the shot was impossible, but it wasn't big to the point where the shot was easy.

The ramp was done by scoring a sheet of cardboard and folding it into a pointed U shape. To stop the U from straightening itself out, a rubber band was stretched over the U near the tip of the ramp to act as a clamp of a sort.

In order to keep the front side wire-free, holes were cut in the backboard to threat the wires and parts of the components (servo, LED, touch) through. The timer arm was made by attaching a shortened plastic drinking straw to the controller arm of the servo motor. The LED and touch sensor were friction-fit into holes cut in the backboard.

The ultrasonic was fit into the right side of the ramp through a hole cut in the wall of the ramp. The cardboard covering plate above it ensures that the ball does not bounce above the detection range of the ultrasonic sensor.

I made a video covering the entire construction process accessible here.

There is an annotated picture below pointing out each component of the product

Part 3: Code

Arduino:

The Arduino coding aspect of this project took the longest. Due to the nature of void loop(), I had a hard time figuring out how to make two loops run simultaneously without their individual delays affecting each other. At first, my ultrasonic detection loop was delaying the timer loop, which meant that each successful point scored would gift the player an extra second of playtime. However, thanks to suggestions from classmates, I was able to work around this restriction by having one loop nested in another. The end result is my ultrasonic detection loop running within the timer loop, and having one delay covering both loops.

My Arduino code (with comments) is available here, and is also embedded below.