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Logic Gate Board Game 04: LCD's Driving Me Crazy -- Episode 293

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element14's The Ben Heck Show

Join the Ben Heck team every week for amazing hacks! Watch them build and mod community-inspired projects using electronics!

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Logic Gate Board Game
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In this week's episode the team considers a library from Microchip and how the game will work. Microchip has a library that allows you to drive an LCD glass with just a microcontroller, no need for an external controller or extra RAM.  They also discuss gamification, make some diagrams of how they want to space up the screen, what goes on the screen, where to put the plugs, and figure out how the puzzle is going to work on the screen. Have advice on how gamification will work?  Let us know in the comments below!

 

 

Ben attempts to use the PIC32 MZ starter kit as a mass storage device with a computer.  Acting as a mass storage device, more puzzles could be added just by dragging and dropping from a computer. There are multiple USB ports on the end; there’s one if it’s a device and one if it’s a host such as your computer.  Ben want’s the microcontroller to act as a device like a USB thumb drive.  There’s also a programming header and a UART with a USB converter.  The hope is that there will be a single USB port on the logic gate board game that can be used for charging as well as transferring data.

 

Ben goes over programming the microcontroller using MPLAB harmony, which includes a good number of examples in its library.  The problem is it doesn’t really tell you how to use them.  What they can do is set up an area of NVM non-volatile memory, the flash that holds the program, and set it up as a small file system.  This allows them to access it from within their program to get files. The USB could also use it as a file system so the user can put files there. Although, they may want to have separate file systems so there’s an area of memory that a person can’t destroy just plugging it into their computer. Getting examples to work isn’t that difficult, the real trick is combining them all.  This includes some kind of sound, LCD, USB, and file system.

 

After aligning the LCD screen he sets up another NOR gate using the MPLAB IDE. They need to do more work on the gamification and how the screen is going to be set up but if they can combine the schematic editor with a graphics driver and create a markup language that can store puzzles in as small space as possible, they’re at a good jumping off point.

 

Karen helps Ben with the gamification using Logic Gate pieces cut out to scale. The further they get away from the Hackmanjii concept, the more difficult it becomes to grasp the gamification.  They discuss giving the game the ability to drive real external devices. Karen slaps Ben with a reality check as things veer off course and they struggle to figure out a purpose for the game.

 

 

Disclaimer

Parents

  • - I would suggest that the 'free play' mode actually would fit in very well with the concept of a teaching tool.

     

    For example, imagine that you've just been watching Carrie Anne on the CrashCourse YouTube channel talking about the ALU for 10 minutes as part of your computer science homework:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I5ZMmrOfnA

    where you see logic representations of half adders and adder logic. As a youngster, my immediate reaction would have been to want to interact with that information in a more tactile sort of way. If I had access to a 'logic gate board game' with free play mode, I could see myself trying to recreate the logic shown in the video so as to be able to actually press the buttons and watch the LEDs light up.

     

    In a teaching tool mode then perhaps the unit could allow you to recall a half adder from a library of logic and allows you to step through the various states.

     

    In an educational game play mode then you could be asked to build a half adder against a clock / scoring system. At advanced level perhaps you start from a blank screen and have to pick the gates and do all the wiring yourself. At basic level perhaps the gates are already shown place and you only have to complete the wiring. However at the end of the game, if you failed to complete any of the puzzles, then  it takes you back into teaching tool mode so as you can review the logic and hopefully learn from it thus boosting the educational value.

Comment

  • - I would suggest that the 'free play' mode actually would fit in very well with the concept of a teaching tool.

     

    For example, imagine that you've just been watching Carrie Anne on the CrashCourse YouTube channel talking about the ALU for 10 minutes as part of your computer science homework:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I5ZMmrOfnA

    where you see logic representations of half adders and adder logic. As a youngster, my immediate reaction would have been to want to interact with that information in a more tactile sort of way. If I had access to a 'logic gate board game' with free play mode, I could see myself trying to recreate the logic shown in the video so as to be able to actually press the buttons and watch the LEDs light up.

     

    In a teaching tool mode then perhaps the unit could allow you to recall a half adder from a library of logic and allows you to step through the various states.

     

    In an educational game play mode then you could be asked to build a half adder against a clock / scoring system. At advanced level perhaps you start from a blank screen and have to pick the gates and do all the wiring yourself. At basic level perhaps the gates are already shown place and you only have to complete the wiring. However at the end of the game, if you failed to complete any of the puzzles, then  it takes you back into teaching tool mode so as you can review the logic and hopefully learn from it thus boosting the educational value.

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