Introduction: Arduino Based Split-Flap Game
More by the author:
About: Hi, I am Richard, Father of 1 son + 2 step sons, so we have a house full of Lego. I have had lego for decades, including Lego mindstorms. I like to make things. In my little garage I have a large CNC machine,…
We have a great Dutch Holiday tradition called sinterklaas (5th of december, this is what the US Santa is based on). For the older "non-believers" we make surprises. The purpose is to buy a small present but make a really cool "surprise" around it. Here my arduino based Split-flap game I made as surprise.
I made this for my 15-year old niece that was asking for very expensive presents only, so I thought I would make her a bit more price conscious :-)
The wooden box and all the components for the Split-flap display were made on my CNC machine. I used 2mm thick plastic to mill out the 36 cards in the display. The wheels holding the cards and the pulleys for the cardwheel and stepper motor were milled from left over thick plastic blocks. I milled a 10 teeth pulley (XL037) for the stepper motor and a 40 teeth pulley for the cardwheel, giving me a ration of 4:1 and with my 1.8 degree per step motor, this gives me plenty of accuracy to make sure I display the right cards. I did build into my arduino code I can easily change the offset for each card to fine calibrate. I had to do this, as not all my cards where equal in size.
The arduino (uno) used to run this all was tested to its limit 15 I/O ports :-)
- 5 pins for the score LEDs
- 4 pins for the stepper motor control, via ULN2003a
- 1 PWM pin for Servo to lock or unlock the side door
- 1 PWM pin for piezo speaker so we can make some sounds
- 1 pin for micro switch to align start of cards
- 2 pins for the lower and higher button
Here a video of the game in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvAR5b2KjYs
if you happen to be Dutch (or at least understand that language), you can also watch the Dutch version of the video :-)
I made this for my 15-year old niece that was asking for very expensive presents only, so I thought I would make her a bit more price conscious :-)
The wooden box and all the components for the Split-flap display were made on my CNC machine. I used 2mm thick plastic to mill out the 36 cards in the display. The wheels holding the cards and the pulleys for the cardwheel and stepper motor were milled from left over thick plastic blocks. I milled a 10 teeth pulley (XL037) for the stepper motor and a 40 teeth pulley for the cardwheel, giving me a ration of 4:1 and with my 1.8 degree per step motor, this gives me plenty of accuracy to make sure I display the right cards. I did build into my arduino code I can easily change the offset for each card to fine calibrate. I had to do this, as not all my cards where equal in size.
The arduino (uno) used to run this all was tested to its limit 15 I/O ports :-)
- 5 pins for the score LEDs
- 4 pins for the stepper motor control, via ULN2003a
- 1 PWM pin for Servo to lock or unlock the side door
- 1 PWM pin for piezo speaker so we can make some sounds
- 1 pin for micro switch to align start of cards
- 2 pins for the lower and higher button
Here a video of the game in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvAR5b2KjYs
if you happen to be Dutch (or at least understand that language), you can also watch the Dutch version of the video :-)
Second Prize in the
Holiday Gifts Contest
