Revision as of 23:37, 20 May 2016

Grading Criteria

Pinball

Abstract

For our project, we wanted to design a pinball machine. We wanted to incorporate bumpers, a 7 segment LED display driven by a UART interface for the total points earned, a sound system that would go off after each bumper was hit, and LED's surrounding the machine. In addition, we wanted the user to be able to interact with the machine by turning it on and off with a power button, as well as control the flippers with push buttons that are placed on the sides of the pinball machine.

Objectives & Introduction

Below is a high level list of the minimum functionality features our project will include.

1. Launching Pin ball (mechanical)
2. Play sound/music when sensors are triggered
3. Flipper Controls (mechanical)
4. Ball detection sensor
5. Score Incrementation as sensors are hit
6. Display score on 7-segment display
7. Game Over announcement

Team Members & Responsibilities

• Yvonne Jacinto
  • Physical Component Design: Building the Pinball Machine container and Designing the layout for the playing field
• Megumi Page
  • Power Accountant: Designing power circuit for power supply and tracking watt consumption
• Jo-Anna Marie Reyes
  • 7-Segment Display Programmer: Developing the code to display outputs as the State Machine executes
• BJ Wahhab
  • Flipper Control/Polling MicroSwitch, State Machine and Software Flow

Schedule

Parts List & Cost

Design & Implementation

The design section can go over your hardware and software design. Organize this section using sub-sections that go over your design and implementation.

Hardware Design

Discuss your hardware design here. Show detailed schematics, and the interface here.

The hardware design included a battery supply, 3 7-segment serial displays, multiple LEDs, and an audio controller.

Hardware Interface

In this section, you can describe how your hardware communicates, such as which BUSes used. You can discuss your driver implementation here, such that the Software Design section is isolated to talk about high level workings rather than inner working of your project.

Hardware Constraints

• Power Supply: 24V / 2.1A
• Pinball size: 0.5 inch diameter / 8.4-8.5 grams each
• Pinball frame width: 1.5 feet
• Pinball frame length: 2 feet
• Pinball frame height: TBD
• Angle: ~5 degrees inclined

Software Design

Show your software design. For example, if you are designing an MP3 Player, show the tasks that you are using, and what they are doing at a high level. Do not show the details of the code. For example, do not show exact code, but you may show psuedocode and fragments of code. Keep in mind that you are showing DESIGN of your software, not the inner workings of it.

Implementation

This section includes implementation, but again, not the details, just the high level. For example, you can list the steps it takes to communicate over a sensor, or the steps needed to write a page of memory onto SPI Flash. You can include sub-sections for each of your component implementation.

Testing & Technical Challenges

Describe the challenges of your project. What advise would you give yourself or someone else if your project can be started from scratch again? Make a smooth transition to testing section and described what it took to test your project.

Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:

Issue #1

We have had a few issues and a majority of these problems have been due to mechanical oversights. One of the first issues we had when starting our project was because of our servos. While trying to purchase our servos, we were researching which servo would work best for our purpose, which would be to control the flippers. Because we were limited with time, we choose the servos we thought would be the best, but they turned out to be too slow. In order to solve this issue, we had to add gears to increase the speed.

Issue #2

One of the smaller scale issues we had included the first set of 7-segment LED displays that we bought. Because of time constraints, we did not do our research well enough to purchase an LED display that fit our project. The first ones we purchased, we were unsure of how to display data on them because the datasheet did not have the information regarding which pin did what function. Because of this, we decided to consult with Preet about whether we should purchase new ones, or try to add different Gates to get them to work. He suggested we use 7-segment LED displays that could be driven by UART and SPI, which was the current ones we have now (COM-09230).

Issue #3

One of the major issues we had was that the ball we initially got for the project was too light for the limit switches to be triggered once on the playing field. Because of this, we ran into other problems. The servos we had were not strong, or fast enough to withstand a ball that was heavier than the ball that we initially have, so we had to think of a different solution. The solution is yet to be determined......

Conclusion

Conclude your project here. You can recap your testing and problems. You should address the "so what" part here to indicate what you ultimately learnt from this project. How has this project increased your knowledge?

Project Video

Upload a video of your project and post the link here.

Project Source Code

• Sourceforge Source Code Link

References

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Preet for encouraging us to pursue this type of project, and for teaching us how to incorporate the labs in a real time project. In addition, we would like to thank Dr. Haluk Ozemek for teaching us the fundamentals we needed in order to complete this project.

References Used

List any references used in project.

Serial 7-Segment LED Display (COM-09230) Datasheet
https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Components/LED/7-Segment/SFE-0012-DS-7segmentSerial-v41.pdf

Serial 7-Segment LED Display (COM-09230) Schematic
https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Components/LED/7-Segment/SPI_to_4x7SD-v22.pdf

Appendix

You can list the references you used.