Introduction: Reaction Time Shooter

Hello everybody, I would like to share with you my new project: Reaction Time Shooter.

This game is to be played by one person at a time. The goal is to get your reaction time as low as possible by quickly shooting the target once the red LED turns on. Most people struggle to get a time below 300ms. I am eager to know what kind of times you are able to accomplish.

Supplies

Gun:

  • IR LED
  • Push-button
  • Arduino Nano V3.0
  • 100 Ω resistor

Target:

  • IR receiver
  • 2x LED (any color)
  • Push-button
  • Arduino Uno
  • I2C LCD interface module
  • 16x2 LCD display
  • 2x 1K Ω resistor

General:

  • Wires

Step 1: Start Small

You have to start somewhere and this is where my journey started, with a simple IR LED hooked up to some code that made it fire every second. Before this point, I had never worked with Arduino or anything similar.

Step 2: Prototype Gun

This is all the setup you will need to have your own functional IR remote/gun. As you can see there is not much to it. Some of you might notice there is no resistor for the button. This is because I used the technique I discovered here. This not only makes the circuit easier but also adds a little trick to how you use the gun:

You see, the human mind expects a button to immediately react once it is pressed. However using this setup, the button will only fire once it has been released. This can be seen as a carnival trick to make it extra difficult to get a good time.

Step 3: Prototype Target

And this is all the setup you will need to have your own functional IR target.

Step 4: LCD Display

For simplicity and clarity, I decided to add an LCD display to an "empty" Arduino Uno. To combine both the target circuits simply connect the 4 wires of the LCD display to the other circuit. The library used by the I2C LCD interface module is available here.

Step 5: Code Gun

This is the code for the IR remote/gun.

Attachments

Step 6: Code Target

And here is the code used by the IR target.

Attachments

Step 7: Final Assembly

For my final assembly, I decided to use an old broken laser pistol I had lying around for my gun and I hollowed out a block of foam for my target. How you want to handle this step is totally up to you though.

Step 8: Play

Once you have it all configured and set up it is time for the most important part: play the game. I highly encourage you to challenge people to get a time below 300ms.