When [Scott] saw our announcement of a contest to win a Fubarino, he had the remarkable insight that designing new hardware wasn’t required. Instead, he took a Simon soldering kit and added a Hackaday easter egg that beeps our favorite URL in Morse code.
[Scott]’s entry began with a Sparkfun Simon Says Soldering Kit. It’s a great kit featuring an ATMega328, four buttons and LEDs, and a speaker. Stock, this board comes programmed with a run-of-the-mill Simon game, but it also includes a serial bootloader and a set of serial pins for reprogramming.
The new firmware for [Scott]’s Simon uses Morse code for ‘hackaday.com’ to determine the time in between the button flashes for each round. Compared to the old-school Simon toy from the 70s, [Scott’s] version seems just slightly more difficult; the game is basically the same, but trying to remember the pattern when the buttons don’t light up in a regular pattern is more challenging than usual.
Because [Scott] isn’t the greatest at Simon, he added another method to generate the full Morse for ‘hackaday.com’. While pressing one button starts a new game, holding down two buttons simultaneously will write out the full Morse of ‘hackaday.com’ on the upper left-hand button: a great easter egg that also adds some difficulty to a classic game.
This is an entry in the Fubarino Contest. Submit your entry before 12/19/13 for a chance at one of the 20 Fubarino SD boards which Microchip has put up as prizes!
These animated GIFs you guys have been using are making my Netvibes homepage look like a cheaply lit Christmas tree…
Sad to read that you are sweating what is some of life’s small shit not worth sweating. Especially when the builder’s blog has no still photo alternative, and Hackday has to run with what they are given.
Am i missing something, why the hatred for animated gif’s? seen a few posts grumping now, not hating, just curious.
Its just because the whingers need something to whing about and animated gifs are just easy targets…
This inspired me to finally build the Simon kit I’ve had laying around for a few months. Pretty cool for 20 minutes of soldering! Mine didn’t include programming headers, but I guess I have some. Anyone have any idea why the microcontroller has one pin cut off?
Simon Says is a newbie kit. The IC and the LEDs are the only polarised components.
A cut leg makes the IC harder to accidentally put wrong way around and the LEDs have extra pads to bridge and traces to cut if you solder them backwards. No desoldering needed.
I know my code is corroded and eroded, but that is tough copy. For me anyway.