I would like to hire someone (yes, pay them) to write a program for an amusement game I am rebuilding.
The game is an old HI-STRIKER (Google search) hammer game where players hit a large hammer to shoot a puck up a pole. I am placing RGBW LED lamps going up the pole every 2" for a total of 250-300 lamps. The lamps are controlled by a TM1814 in each lamp.
The game will have 2 modes, attract and play.
Attract:
I need the lamps to have an "attract mode" where the colors change with patterns...I can do this with an off the shelf controller but would prefer to have it programmed in the Arduino.
Play:
Players would hit a start button which stops the "attract mode" and turns all the lights to green. Then when a player hits the puck up the pole, the puck will trigger photo sensors at each lamp which will send a negative pulse (5-10ms) to the Arduino. As it passes each lamp, the color needs to change from green to white and hold for 10 seconds then reset to green. Repeats this for 3 turns and then goes back to attract mode. At the same time, (second Arduino?) will count the pulses and display them on a 3 digit, 7 segment display. The display will reset at the same time as the lamps.
That is the general idea. I am glad to answer more questions if you have them. Please feel free to PM me any questions or prices.
Thanks for your help.
Zach
Hi prozach,
If I read your specs right - you will have 250-300 sensors. You also want them all to connect to a single arduino?
Pat.
And to make things easier for anyone: What's the budget? And what do you want to be delivered?
For whoever will do this the only challenging part is the 300 switches thing.
An easy way to read them is grouping them in 3 lines A, B, C
A line switches: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13...
B line switches: 2, 5, 8, 11, 14..
C line switches: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15..
When puck is going up it fires lines: ABCABCABC ... till top. When it descends it reverses the order ..BACBACBA...
So both position and direction of the moving puck can be known. It's pretty much how 3 phase sensored brushless motors work .
A slight improvement of OP's description is sensing the hummer instead of start button. Either a motion sensor in it - when it stopped motion it means nobody is using it and switch to "attraction mode" in 10 seconds. When it is grabbed it starts to move so game can switch to play mode.
Easier is hiding the button within a slot/socket where hummer must be placed to end play mode
My thought was to simply have a single pulse input into the Arduino from all the sensors. Each time the arduino receives a pulse it advances the white light. The sensors (already designed) will only give one pulse until reset,so as the puck descends it does not trigger them again.
I would like to keep this under $500.00. All I need is the programming done. I will supply all hardware.
The programming sounds simple enough - but whether it is, and how to do it, depends highly on the hardware setup. Especially how all those sensors are connected (port extenders? shift registers? something else?).
Writing software for such a project is very hard without having the actual hardware at hand (sounds bulky) to test and see how it really reacts. If you plan to send the hardware to the programmer, maybe you should disclose your location.