[Adam] from Teague Labs wrote in to share a new gadget they built to help demonstrate the capabilities of the Teagueduino. Their table top video game in a box was made with a bunch of electronic components they had sitting around, as well as soda straws, plenty of painter’s tape, and some popscicle sticks.
When someone pulls the string on the front of the box, a servo opens it automatically, and a second servo starts spinning the game reel. As the reel moves, the player is presented with a set of obstacles to dodge, guiding the “hero” via a knob-controlled servo. A hall sensor attached to the back of the character is tripped when passing over any of the obstacles, which are attached to the reel with magnetic tape. When the hero collides with an obstacle, the game ends and proceeds to close itself, much to the chagrin of the player.
As you can see in the video below, it’s a pretty entertaining and challenging game.
Looking to make one of your own? Swing by the Teagueduino site to grab the game’s code and be sure to share your creations with us in the comments.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/28781718 w=470]
Very cool. Retro.
I love how the knob needs a servo and isn’t just connected directly to the arm itself… But guess it need as much hardware as possible lol
I would imagine the way they have it setup you could increase the difficulty by adding a delay to the nob and therefor increasing the playability of the game.
The game board servo speeds up the longer you ‘survive’, so the game does get increasingly harder relatively quickly.
Similar effect as delaying the movement servo, just a different means of getting there.
another option could be to increase or decrease sensitivity over time, so that a larger or smaller input is needed for the same level of output.
Haha, very awesome. Wouldn’t mind trying it.
Also, am I the only one whose mind went er…not the right place when reading “Game in a box”?
Yes. Although now that you mention it… :)
“Game in this box, just for you.” *hands box*
there should be some sort of mechanism underneath the belt that can move the obstacles randomly. that way each pass can be different.
It is pretty funny how the lid drops shut when you fail. hehehe
and if you combin it with The spinning UV-Light-Writer you really could make multiple levels ;-)
This has such a sharp feel to the opening and closing of the box, that’s brilliant.
really really like the use of a physical game, although I agree it’d be nice if mario was controlled mechanically rather than electronically.
it’d be nice if it didn’t have a ‘finish’ point, but instead continued to get harder as it ran up a time-based score on a little LED screen so you could compare against your friends.
I also like the idea of having an electromagnet on a servo that would attempt to reposition the obstacles on the backside of the level, creating a haphazard and random game on every pass.
or, it’d be neat if the servo was programmed to default to it’s fullest position, and the knob was switched out for a button, effectively adding gravity and jumping to the game instead of shifting :)
Totally! We didn’t originally start with Mario and had the same thought as soon as we switched.
We also thought about using the polarity of the magnets to drive points -vs- bad guys. so if you run into a goomba, you lose health, or if you jump and hit a ?-block you get points.
Guess we’ll have to make another one… :)
only problem, mario’s going from right to left :O
Am I the only one bothered by the fact that it is scrolling the wrong way?
I know, right? We realized this after we had hot glued everything in place :( We could switch the direction of the servo driving it, but it would have bubbled the paper up on top instead of pulling it taught. Next version for sure though!
Very awesome! Gives me inspiration :)
Well done. Kind of retro but not.
Gerry Ellsworth would love this.
Sorry, Jeri, misspelled your name.