Introduction: Flappy Bird Using Arduino and Processing

About: An Electronics engineer and a hobbyist. I love to keep experimenting with microcontrollers.

Hello everyone!!!

Welcome to a new Arduino based project. We all have once in our life time played the flappy bird game. How if we play it on our PC and control it using our Arduino?? Follow all the steps given below and by the end of this tutorial you will control the game using your microcontroller.

Step 1: Get the Supplies

So for this project we will be using an Arduino Uno Board and an SR-04 Ultrasonic sensor. I recommend you to buy these components from UTSource.net as they provide low cost electronics components and modules with no compromise in quality. Do check them out!!!

1 X Arduino Uno

1 X SR-04Ultrasonic Sensor

A breadboard(optional) and few header wires

Step 2: Working in Brief

The reason we used the ultrasonic sensor here is to get the distance data between our hand and the

sensor and use those values to adjust the height of the moving bird. The game is created in Processing and the Arduino communicates with it using the serial port. I have linked few images of the game above so take a look at them in order to get some idea about this project.

Step 3: Let's Do the Connections

First connect the SR-04

sensor to the Arduino board. As there is just one sensor to interface I won't add a circuit diagram for this project. The connections are as follows -

SR-04 >> Arduino Uno

Vcc >> 5V

Gnd >> Gnd

Trigger Pin >> Digital pin 11

Echo Pin >> Digital pin 10

That's it the connections are done.

Step 4: Upload the Arduino Code

Now time to upload the code to your Arduino board.

Download the code from below.

Before uploading the code make sure to select the proper com port and baud rate as we will be using it for sending data to the game.

***************************************************

void setup()

{

pinMode(trigPin,OUTPUT);

pinMode(echoPin,INPUT);

Serial.begin(9600); // Set the baud rate here

}

*******************************************************

Step 5: Open the Processing Program

Once the Arduino code is uploaded, download and open the

processing code. Again set the same baud rate and mention the correct com port as you did earlier.

*******************************************************

void setup(){

size(400,600);

p1.x = width + 50;

p2.x = width + 220;

p3.x = width + 370;

myPort = new Serial(this, "COM3", 9600); //Change the com port and baud rate here

myPort.bufferUntil(10);

}

********************************************************

Now let's give this game a try. Just click on the run button in the processing Ide and you are good to go.

The bird moves according to the distance between your hand and the sensor.

Hope you liked this small instructable. If yes then please show some support by hitting the favourite button also share it with your friends. If you need any assistance feel free to comment below. That's it for today guys. See you'll soon with another awesome project.