Game of Life Kit

The Game of Life Boards are a scalable platform for cellular automata visualizations. Each board contains 16 LEDs in a 4x4 grid, a microcontroller, and a communications and power distribution network. With the available firmware, they execute Conway's Game of Life. Boards can act alone, or can be plugged into other boards to create a larger display. You can get this kit from the MAKE store.

Each kit comes standard with green LEDs, but any LEDs can be used by adjusting the values of the resistors. The board accepts 6 to 12V DC power, and each board draws a maximum of approximately 0.25 amps.

This kit is great for soldering beginners. To learn the basics of soldering check out this great guide by noahw. Also, here's a good video tutorial from the MAKE blog. Bre has a cool video about this on the MAKE blog.

Currently, this guide details basic construction. An explanation for connecting multiple boards will be up soon, too!

Step 1: What you get and what you need.

Check out the pictures for what you get with the kit, the tools you'll need, and what extra components you'll need.

You may want to check out Dropout Design's own documentation, and print it out. They have a nifty placement diagram as well as a schematic.

What you get:
Board
Atmega48 IC
Regulator
16 Leds
16 Resistors
2 Capacitors

What tools you need:
Rosin core, 60/40 solder
Soldering Iron hopefully with a pencil-like tip
Wire clippers
A vice to hold up the PCB
(You can get all this stuff really cheap at http://www.all-spec.com/ or http://www.allelectronics.com/)

What components you need:
6V-12V power supply
Wire to connect power supply to board
(An easy way is to get a 9V battery with a clip, as pictured)

Comments

[tyoder2]

Hey I was just wondering if there were any schematics for this. I'm just wondering you know cause it would seem more interesting if I could build the entire thing instead of just solder some diodes and stuff to it ya know.

[boudemaniak]

Where can i get the .hex file? i burned the chip and i have another one without the program :) my new chip is the atmega8.. can i use that one?

[lifelong-newbie]

It's a popular kit, but i'd be wary of a craze of manual re-writing going on. There's not much point in going back in time and documenting all the electronics kits ever released. But still a good instructables

[A good name]

What does this do?

[iq_abyss]

Play, learn, understand... http://psych.hanover.edu/JavaTest/Play/Life.html

[arutkow]

Would it be possible to cover a large sphere (llike a big toy ball from walmart) with these boards, and wire them all together in such a way that there would be no beginning or end? And if so, how tacky would it look as a ceiling light/chandalier in my apartment? -Abram

[arseny]

They're flat boards. So you can cover a ball, but it'd look weird. It would look very strange, indeed.

[tylermenezes]

What is the size of the board? I'm wondering how many of these I would need to cover something.

[arseny]

They're about 3"x3" but that's not exact. Email the Make store, I'd say.

[arutkow]

I am curious about the possibilities of combining this project with another one I found online for a Frosted-glass-top table (I assume though that the display would have to be in a square form to look best). I am new to LEDs , but I am confident I could handle the work involved. Unless, of course, the costs start to skyrocket, I think it would be interesting to watch the Game of Life while I am eating dinner, perfect when there is a lull in the conversations. Any advice would be appreciated. -Abram

[MAKEkits]

That's not a bad idea. I'm not sure what construction goes into the frosted glass, but the game of life setup would be pretty simple. Just wire together as many of these squares as needed for the table, be sure to install a switch to turn the game of life on and off. You'll only need to power one of the boards, and maybe getting a 12v ac/dc adapter wouldn't hurt depending on how huge the table actually is.

[zachninme]

These boards are interesting, but something bothers me. On the game of life, there are 8 cells surrounding every cell, right. Yet the side inputs only have enough for 16 LEDs. This means, the corner LEDs are not factored in. I don't know how to visually show this, but if you have 4 of these boards, say these numbers represent the led's at the corner: [12|34] 56|78 In this, 2 cannot affect 7, as it has no input onto the board, unless its sent from board-to-board, does it?

[trialex]

Yep, they have included corners in their algorithm. 2 will affect 7, assuming the board to the right of three and above 7 is in place to take the data and pass it on.

[MAKEkits]

I'm not an expert on the software, but from experience, the game works much better when you attach boards together, the "game" is much more interesting. I would say that information is sent board-to-board. Check out the documentation from Dropout Design, which explains how interaction works.

[fourier]

Actually, in Conway's Game of life, it assumes the board is infinitely large. Because of realistic boundaries, people attach the edges for a old school space invaders-like movement. You know, where if you go too far left, you come back from the right edge. But this causes interference with other propagating cells.

[zachninme]

On that note, I wonder what happens when you connect a board to itself, i.e. the 4 things on the left to the 4 on the right, and 4 on the top to the 4 on the bottom...

[MAKEkits]

Ok, I did this, and the results are interesting at best. Sometimes nothing strange happens, but one time i had all the lights go on and then they cycled in rows until they finally died save for one or two. I did this by just connecting them all to each other with a wire.

[Nuno]

eh, sorry, not yet ok, "220Ohm Watt Resistor" makes no sense :)

[MAKEkits]

Thanks for the corrections! Some people tend to read the image comments over the main body. I think from now on I'll just put the (hopefully correct) technical stuff into the body.

[Nuno]

Nice project! I think you meant "1/6W" and not "16W" on the resistor comment on the first image.