Project 3 Update

Here's some video documentation of a few of the things I've been working on, namely the Lasers, The fan, and the sensors. Its really just a bit of an overview though, I will go into more detail for each below.



The Lasers

I started by hacking apart a cheap laser pointer we purchased from the $2 shop, I removed the push button switch and replaced it with an external sliding switch so that the laser could be mounted inside the game, but be controlled easily from the outside. I then reattached the original 1.5V batteries and reconstructed the casing for the laser using a mixture of Card, Insulation tape, wire and hot clue. Messy but effective.

The Fan

After I had finished fabricating the lasers, I decided the tackle the fan next. Making the laser beams visible was a fairly crucial aspect of our project, and other than hongs brief experiment with the baby powder, nobody had done anything to address this. Jenni and I had toyed with the idea of making our own fans using small electric motors and blades made out of card, but we found the motors were too slow and just didn't generate enough wind. We didn't have a lot of room to work with (just over an inch ) so getting a larger motor was not possible. I headed in to Jaycar to have a look round at what I could use, and found a large computer case fan, it was orientated upwards and had the blades attached around the motor, so easily slotted into the thin space we had available. Although designed to run of 12V, I found it could run of 9V without too much of a noticeable drop in performance.

I looked at two different styles of switches for the fan, a sliding switch, like I used for the lasers, and a push button switch. I liked the idea of the user being able to have quite a lot of control over the fan, rather than just switching it on and leaving it going constantly (which would drain the battery VERY quickly) so I went with the push button switch. A soldered it to a long length of wire so the user could hold it in one hand and control the fan, while maneuvering through the game with the other.

Although once I placed the fan inside the case, Hong and I had our doubts as to weather it would be powerful enough to blow sufficient powder into the air. However at this stage we don't really have any alternatives, as there simply isn't room for any other style of fan, so I guess we will just have to wait and see...

The Sensors

I soldered up the photocell sensors i mocked up on the breadboard when I did my initial experiments a few weeks ago, Each is positioned inside a separate panel, and needed to be connected to the arduino, this required a lot of wires (15 in all) which proved a bit of a nightmare to organise, as the wires going from the arduino to the photocell needed to be long enough to allow for the whole panel to be removed and placed in another slot. We ran into quite a few issues with this, but im slowly sorting it out.
Fabrication

I also helped Hong with the assembly of the panels, positioning the laser and photocell so they aligned correctly proved very difficult, as the only thing we could really use to attach either was Super glue, which was not ideal. In hindsight using the black acrylic was probably quite a bad choice as it has proven quite difficult to work with, and its original glossy finish is now tarnished. By the end of the day we had installed and aligned the laser and photocell in only one panel, but with our method worked out, we should be able to do the remaining four fairly quickly. Unfortunately once this is done, we still have a mountain of stuff left to do before thursday.....