Electronics

The electronics for our game were based off of a simple input and output system using a microcontroller.
Input: Sensors on the tentacles sense when they're hit and signal the microcontroller to turn off the electromagnet. Sensors in the basket sense when eggs are placed in them, triggering a score. Finally teams have their own button input to turn off the electromagnet to help them score objects in their baskets.
Output: The using the inputs the microcontroller controlled three different outputs. The LEDs were used to help teams know when they failed (by blinking red when they hit a tentacle for example) and to tell them the game was running (by staying green). It also would flash when eggs were scored so teams knew they were sucessful. The electromagnet was another output and let teams grasp objects on the ground and carry them up to score. Finally, the servos on the baskets act as an output that reset the room by dropping the eggs back to the ground. A system image is below:

The implementation was broken into two different aspects: functionality and cleanliness. A bunch of our time was spent wiring up the structure and keeping all of the wiring organized. The rest of the time was re-implementing the input/out sensors onboard the strucutre and confirming they worked as a system. Below are two photos. One of the mounted electronics and another of the green LEDs in our game.

Images

Below are two videos of the electronics implementation. One is of the automatic egg reset usign a servo motor and gravity. The other is of the magnet dropping an egg into a basket:

Videos