LED_CHASER — Jeromey Schwartz

LED Chaser Game V2

Below are a few 3D renders of V2 of the game. On the back are the game objectives and rules.

Interactive Firing Circuit

Game Circuit on Breadboard

After the game circuitry was verified on a breadboard I designed a PCB using EasyEDA. I designed V1 of the game to be powered via a micro USB cable. The video at the top of the page demonstrates V1 of the game. I decided to make a V2 for the game to improve its portability. Rather than using an external power supply or something to power it I added power pads to the bottom of the board and some holes for cable strain relief to allow the game to be powered by two 2032 coin cell batteries. In addition to changing the power input I added two SMD parts so a user can add an LED to the back of the game (mounted in reverse) in order to diffuse light through the FR4 board and look like the board art is lit from the front.

After the basic design of the game was decided I needed to test the design with real components. Below you can see the game circuit for a single player, with the firing button/circuit on the smaller breadboard and a manual clock on the bottom left of the larger breadboard.

An AND gate is used to determine if a player scores a point. One input of the AND gate is connected to the FIRING LED directly above the players button and the other AND input is connected to the closest LED on the ring. When both inputs are high a signal is sent to the shift register indicating to advance that players point LED progression.

LED Chaser Game V2 Top Render

LED Chaser Game V2 Bottom Render

Gameplay Video Demo (sound on)

This is a hardware only project so no coding required. The game uses four shift registers, two for the ring of LEDs, and two to keep track of the players points. A 555 timer is used to generate a clock and a potentiometer is included to change the speed of the clock and in tern the speed of gameplay.

In order to stop a player from simply holding down their FIRE button a bit of analog circuity was introduced. A capacitor is used to hold a charge for a user to fire in order to score. Let me explain… By selecting an appropriate capacitor and resistor combo we can change how fast a capacitor both charges and discharges(more info here). So for the game we want the capacitor to charge slow enough that a player cannot fire multiple times in one turn (turn being once per LED revolution around the board). Additionally we want the capacitor to discharge fast enough that the player cannot hold down the fire button and extend the fire time. I researched different circuits to control the button fire and landed on the one shown in the included Multisim simulation. This is an interactive simulation so you can change values and see how it affects the circuit. Disconnecting S1 from 5V is the same as pressing the button in game. The final circuit is a bit different than this but I found simulating different circuits to be the fastest way to develop a circuit that met my needs in as simple a way as possible. Once the firing capacitor is fully charged it will act like an open circuit which causes a firing status LED to light up indicating that the button is ready to be fired. The simulation t

LED Chaser Game

Personal Project (Spring 22)

Background

The inspiration for this project was to create something fun/interesting using logic gates. I considered creating a logic gate puzzle or an adder but decided on this LED Chaser Game.

Objective

During game play one LED on the ring is lit at a time, and the objective is to press your FIRE button when the LED directly above the button is lit. As a player scores points the LEDs in the center of the ring will light up and advance towards the center. The first player that reaches 5 points and lights up the center is the winner.