[Mime] likes to make puzzles and games for his friends to play, often using recycled electronics to construct them. He had been contemplating a sound-based game for some time when he came across an old rotary phone at a garage sale that would be perfect for what he had in mind.
He calls his creation the Freakyphone, and the goal of the game is to guess the name of a historical figure via a series of audible clues. The phone was constructed using an Arduino that plays audio using a sound shield from Adafruit. While he was ultimately unable to get the phone’s ringer to work properly, [Mime] says that the build process was relatively easy overall.
When activated, the phone buzzes for attention, prompting the player to pick up the handset. After introducing the game, the phone will ring additional times with random sound clips to clue the player into the historical figure’s name. If the player correctly enters the person’s name using the rotary dial, they receive a “winning tone” and the game is over.
It’s always nice to see someone building gadgets for their friends just for the sake of fun – nice work!
Continue reading to see a video showing how the Freakyphone was built along with a demo of the game.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdDxavA3RRY&w=470]
A real ringer takes 90 volts AC (slow, like several cycles a second) to run. I would not bother as such voltages are “shocking” and dangerous to low voltage semiconductors. I would just play back a ring sound-loop through your speakers.
Nice build.
Agree. There is a circuit at http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/50 that I have found to work well, but I also found that removing the ringer allows me to place parts inside the phone. You’d have to get pretty dang creative to fit an arduino and shield in there with the ringer still in place.
Anybody ever play the game Dream Phone? (not that I ever did)
I too thought about just playing the ringing sound on the speaker, but the small speaker in the earpiece is lot loud enough. The PC speakers you see in the video above was only used so the mic in my cam could hear what the phone was playing. During normal operation the phone only uses the speaker in the earpiece. Btw does anyone know of any small DC bells aside from the relatively big ones used in old doorbells?
I’ve successfully used these in a similar project, the hammer mechanism runs on 5 volts.
Mini double bell clock
Make sure you get the mini versions as the bells on regular ones are about 1.25 inches in diameter.
Now i respect you! A day in the life of a turret, good vid :D