Results & Reflections

After putting countless hours into our project much can be said about the result, as well as the process getting there. There were many unexpected hurdles we faced which were frustrating and time consuming. The time frame which we thought we had proved not to be enough in completing the various aspects of our game. It became clear to us as we were building the game that there was much more to our idea than we foresaw. The individual aspects of the game, such as the sensing and encoding of a “hit” target, the use of handyboard digital outputs, and the control of the laser became bigger tasks than we had envisioned.

In the end, tic-tac-zap was partially functional. The human player had the ability to control the laser position by the two knobs on the base of the board. The resolution of this control was surprisingly high. It was only a matter of becoming comfortable with aiming at individual squares on the board. We encountered problems with the control of the servo motors, which positioned the laser on two separate axis. What we thought was a mechanical problem, or handyboard problem, turned out to be software problem. A couple of files which were automatically downloaded into the handyboard had to be unloaded, and the IC commands had to be entered in a specific order. The fire button, which was also located on the base of the board was functional. Simply being able to control and fire the laser, though only part of the game, was very cool.

The encoding and decoding of signals within our circuitry, when tested apart from the game board, was functional. The laser light was detected by the photoresistors and encoded, while the digital outputs of the handyboard were properly decoded and held by the flip-flops. Once fully connected to the board, though, the story was different. For one reason or another the behavior of the circuit was not the same anymore. The encoding posed us much difficulty, and once that was resolved, it seemed as though it was the handyboard which was not reading or writing the data correctly. We came to realize that using the handyboard in inputting and outputting data, though seemingly simple, was very unpredictable

The electronic aspect of the project went slow for other reasons too. One bump in the road came when a couple of our flip-flop chips turned out to be duds. At one point, we also found that a part of our breadboard was dead. Problems such as these simply took up time to identify. This is not to mention that the circuit itself was not by any means small.

The portion of the game board which supported the laser on two axis posed some difficulty in its construction. Having the plate which controlled the horizontal motion of the laser rotate smoothly on its bolt and screw was somewhat of a task. Overall, some of these parts had to be cut a few times before it actually worked as intended. Once finished, the mechanical design worked well with both servo motors, and the ergonomic aspect of the game board as a whole was very good. We had originally planned on making the tic-tac-toe face only 3X3 inches, which would have been much too small. The final size was 6X6 inches, which turned out to be perfect for our purposes.

Looking back, our decision to pursue this idea was a good one. It is definitely better than our “battleship” idea, which would have involved a similar board, except for the fact that the number of squares would have been much greater. The wiring for that, with all the diodes and detectors, would have very repetitive and cumbersome. Tic-tac-zap was a fun and interesting idea, which was definitely possible, but simply a hassle to debug.

By designing and building this project a good picture of what ideas are feasible, within knowledge and time boundaries, was attained. It is often easy to think of grand, entertaining ideas, without thinking of what it will entail, and what problems might come along with it. This project has definitely made us aware of these things. Being able to creatively solve problems, in the midst of construction, is a skill in itself which we were made aware of and forced to exercise. These kinds of things could not have been learned apart from actually diving into a project and attempting to make it work.

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