DIY Aurduino LED Game

For this Instructable we are going to make an Aurduino powered LED game. If you have a few extra Aurduinos lying around or if you are just learning this project is perfect for you. This game is awesome for long car rides, boring sporting events, quick stress relief and family fun. The game consist of nine LEDs and the goal is to hit the green LED, the game has nine different modes(Easy-Hard). You can compete with friends and family and see who gets the best score.

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For this project I tried to make all of the materials and tools as basic as possible.

Materials:

• Aurduino Board, I used a Nano because I had an extra one but any board can work you might need to adjust the code
• 9x LEDs - 6x Red, 2x Yellow, 1x Green(The colors can be changed, I used these because that made the most sense)
• 2x Buttons
• 9x 220 Ohm resistors
• Jumper wires
• A cardboard box, tissue box or you can also 3D print a case
• Bread Board, used for testing(Not required)
• Spray Paint(Decoration)

Tools:

• Soldering Iron
• Hot Glue Gun
• Files(not required)
• Wire cutters
• Box Cutters
• Scissors
• PCB board
• Pins

Ok, before we cut up our boxes I would recommend testing this game out on a breadboard in case you don't like it.

Now for the box, for this part you are going to need a space to store all of the electronics. I am using a cardboard box but just about anything could work for this. The dimensions of my box 5*5*2.

The first thing we are going to be doing is labeling where our holes are gonna go. I did this with a sharpie. Just trace out where all of your holes are. For the buttons I took a guess where they would be centered but for the LEDs I measured out the positioning.

After marking up the buttons I used a box cutter to cut out each edge of the outline, I made my cuts smaller than the buttons so there was a lot of friction while the buttons were in. If yours buttons slide in and out a lot that is ok because we will hot glue them later. When it came time to cut out the LED holes I used a small flat head screw driver to poke out little holes. Just so you know the LEDs are not going to be inside the box, they will be resting on top of the box and the hole is for the connections.(Refer to the photos above for any confusion.)

Once you have cut up all the holes go ahead and do a quick test fit.

Also cut out a small hole in the back of the box to fit a USB cable through for data and power.

Before we get to decorations now is the time to pull out your hot glue gun and secure down the LEDs and buttons. Simply just add glue where necessary. Now time for the decorations, there are so many possibilities for this. For the purpose of your creativity I am not going to decorate mine. I would love to see how you personalize your game so please leave a photo of your decorations. I also recommend adding labels for reset and Hit It! button.

For this part you are going to need a soldering iron and a perfboard. Refer the Fritzing diagram above for the circuit, also I have photos of my final board. The point of this board is to connect the ground ports and resistors. First step to the soldering is to stick all your components where you want them. Now you can draw out how much you need to cut off the board. There are a couple of good ways to cut up your board. The first method is a Dremel. Simply clamp down the board and the Dremel will do the rest. Next way is a hack saw. Similarly to the Dremel you are going to clamp down the board and slowly move the saw up and down. The final method is a lot less clean but it still will work. Use an exacto knife and go over the lines making lots of passes. Then the board should be easy to snap apart. After you've cut your board, especially after using an exacto knife, I recommend filing it down to make the sides smooth. Now put your components in at the same spot as before and start soldering. It is really important to do a good job so go slow. Again refer to the pictures above for reference.

This is definitely the most complicated and fragile part. You are going to need a lot of female to female wires for this. For the buttons solder wires onto the tips(Male to Female). All you have to do is follow the wiring diagram above but now that you have a case for this it makes it significantly harder. You can also watch my time lapse.

For the code you are simply going to go to the GitHUb page and download it. Here is a link to GitHub page with the code: https://github.com/masonhorder/youtube/blob/master/led_game.ino Once downloaded upload the code to your Aurduino through the IDE program. If you do not know how to do this than here is a link to help you: https://www.dummies.com/computers/arduino/how-to-upload-a-sketch-to-an-arduino/

Ok, before this project is final we are going to stick the Micro USB cable through the hole in the back. Now you can close up the box, make sure to not put too much pressure any where or wires will start falling out. You can start playing. Enjoy!