Build String Powered Car Racing Game on the Board

by CrazyScience in Circuits > Gadgets

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Build String Powered Car Racing Game on the Board

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Hello guys in this instructables I will show you something very unique! In this project I made this string powered car racing game that you can play on the board

It is a very fun and interactive game to play with your friends the rule of the game is similar to the actual car racing game but here inside of you driving the car you have two buttons with the help of which you can control the entire car.

This is a multiplayer game you can just keep a stopwatch and see how long does it take for each to reach the finish point.

Confusing? Let me explain this to you in a simple way kindly stay tuned and read the below steps

This is a string powered car racing game and we have a track at the center and the goal here is to keep the car on the track from start to end position

To control the car and maintain the car on the track we have 2 button and these buttons will drive the motor and with the help of string the car is conencted to the pulleys.

It may seem easy for anyone to play this game but it is not! You will need a good hand to eye co-ordination to control this car.

Throw away all your electronic gadgets! i mean it seriously why someone has to weaken their vision looking at those games on screen and why not switch something to such classic type of board games that has lot of benefits

Specially the youger gen that are totally addicted to games on the screen might consider building this and actaullu having fun playing with this.

I also have given a working video at the end of this project so that you can actually see how can you build and take the full advantage of my project.

Supplies

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We need these components to build this game project gather first to make the project build a lot easier

Sheet of cardboard or MDF board get it here

Push Buttons x 2

Thread or string

DC Motor x 2

Pully x 2

Hot glue and Super Glue

Couple of Wires

Soldering Iron

18650 battery x 2

Battery holder x 2 (single type)

Black sheet paper

White chart paper

Glue

Compass and Pencil

Scissors

if you are buying from this links i will receive small comission at no extra cost to you

Make the Racetrack

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There are many ways to build a race track for this project but I will explain you the very easy and appealing one.

To build race track you need white and black sheet of paper, Here the road will be made with the black sheet meanwhile the strips on the road will be made by cut pieces of paper

If you are good at drawing take A4 sheet of paper and draw the race track from top to bottom keeping the sheet vertically to give no room for errors firstly I marked the race track on this white sheet later traced the same on the black sheet of paper.

Finish by adding white strips at the centre part of this road at this point our race track is ready, Now you can add glue to the back part of this black paper and add it to the main cardboard sheet.

Now we have the track part ready and since we have the track ready we need car also! So we will see how to build one in the nest step

Build Race Cara and Lift Mechanism

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To build the race car I made the simple trace of car on a sheet of paper, I also added this small cute little Mirrors to make it much more to look like a car.

When you are preparing any design of the car make sure at the centre you have a hole so that you can have view at the road tracks when you are playing the game.

I also added the Mirror by cutting small strips of black paper, Now you can place this entire paper sheet on to a cardboard and make it look like an actual car, At the back side you just need to make two small holes and add a string.

I will be adding two separate strings, and the ends must be secured well, so I will be using super glue.

These small circles with hole at the center will control the lift and drop of the car, you can upcycle from old thread spools or simply 3d print them

To the ends at the left and right of the board glue these and now you can insert the threads from the car inside this so that their ends will go to the dc motor pully.

Now we will see how you can cotrol the car electronically so we need to build a circuit first.

Electronics

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There is no much big deal with the electronics, here we are using two simple circuits that will turn the motor on and off at the press of push button.

Let me give you the explanation of the circuit, From the battery holder wire connect one end to the DC motor and the other end of dc motor termibal to the push button terminal.

Now when you insert the battery to battery case and press on the push button the motor will work, Make sure to check the direction of rotation of the motor and the pulleys, i marked arrow as you can see in the step

This cicuit can then be inserted on the project and to do so add hot glue to the bottom sides as you see on the step.

Allow to dry completely and now the car that we prepared earlier can be connected to the pulleys, Start by inserting the string to the respective slot at the top.

I rolled the string to the dc motor pulley with 4 to 5 rounds and the excess strings were cut and the ends were glued to the shaft to avoid the loosening of the string.

In the end when you keep the car on the start position the pulleys of DC motor should take the load, It simply means that when you give a small rotation to the DC motor shaft the car should move either it can be in the left or right direction if you are done with the step then we can proceed.

Before connecting the motors to battery and switch test by manually rotating the motor shaft, If this goes on well then we can proceed with next step

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Adding Buttons and Battery

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This is the most important part of the project, Here I have used ordinary push buttons.

Make a note that out of the four legs of the push buttons we are using 2 since we have a pair of pins that do the same function.

Use a generous amount of hot glue drops on the board to attach the push buttons make sure the hot glue is not too much hot nor too much cold.

We need a good adhesion since we will be dealing with a lot of pressure on the buttons at the time of gameplay.

Now we can work on the back side part, I will add drops of hot glue followed by adding the battery case, Allow it to dry completely, and now you can insulate the wire connection points.

In some cases if you feel that the power of motor is too much add a small coin to the inside of tha car, By doing this the load on motor will incrase and the speed will come to slow.

I will add a small sheet of board at the back to hide all the wire connections so the project looks neat

Manually try to pull and load the motor pulley to check if there is no issues at the time of working.

How to Play With Video Tutorial

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A String Car Racing Game on the Board

Like we discussed to playi this game it is very easy, Not only you will have good time but also it will improve your hand to eye coordination.

Believe me once you start playing this game you will ignore the mobile and tablet games for real! if you build this project by yourself consider taking these to any parties to have much more fun.

Start by turning on the battery once you insert the battery to the battery holder this project is ready and you can play the game.

Make sure the car is at the start point we have two push button left and right when you push the right button the car move towards the right on the track and the same happens when you are pressing on the left button.

Challenge here is the car should move exactly through the centre in the race track and it should make it till the end of the track, If you are able to achieve this then you are the winner.

Make a note of time taken to reach from the start to the end, Also you can add much more challenge to the game by reversing the direction of buttons.

So when you are clicking on the left the car move towards right and vice-versa this will add additional layer of challenge to the game

This is all about this project, All the best.