One of my second year modules for my Product Design degree course is Electronics, and this year we have been sponsered by National Instruments.
They have donated to us a large number of MyDaqs- this allowed us to be more hands on in our learning, instead of being stuck in lecture theatres.
Our Project was to make a console for an electronic game which had the same concept of the App Angry Birds- a game which incorparated force, elevation and angle.
- Sounds easy enough for a Product Design student, BUT WAIT...
.... We had to design the circuits too!!!!!
(But thanks to the MyDaq, it was not impossible to create)
In the end I managed to put together a nice little nifty circuit which incorparated two sliders: one elevation/ angle, one the force applied.
A basic LED to show that the game is 'ON' and a push button to 'FIRE' the (angry) bird.
BELOW SHOWS MY 'MASTERPIECE'
We got to choose our own target market for this project and because of the Angry Bird theme, I was inspired by my sisters.
My sisters both suffer from autism as well as severe learning difficulties- this makes it incredibly difficult for them to learn.
Around a year ago I was playing Angry Birds on my smartphone and one of my sisters looked very intrigued- I gave it to her to play, but I could instantly notice some issues with the standard game and interface
.
- She found the noises too loud and instantly started trying to cover her ears
- As she is not aware of her own strength, she found the touchpad incredibly hard to use effectively
- The game had to many options to select at one time so she had no idea on how to progress through the game
- When she quickly lost intrest, she threw the phone across the other side of the room and left screaming while biting her wrist.
I knew I could make this game more suitable
Therefore by adapting the famous App game for this project it would bring in new players, while educating them.
Because of the above issues, I wanted to keep the circuit simple and not have too many gadgets on it.
Autistic children often find it difficult to conecerntrate and are very noise sensetive - so Buzzer/ Audio was instantly thrown out the window!
They often suffer from epilepsey, so bright, flashing LEDs were also not an option.
Instead I thought a push-button could be fun as that could be incorparated into an over-sized textured component- which they would find very entertaining as most they often have sensory toys incorparated into their learning.
The actual game system was already created by out tutor so we could test and calibrate our circuits.
BELOW TAKES YOU THROUGH THE CALIBRATION AS WELL AS THE GAMEPLAY
- Sylvie
