F19: Road Max Fury
Contents
Project Title
Road Max Fury- Game using FreeRTOS
Abstract
Road Max Fury is a game based on a classic car racing arcade game developed in 1984 by Konami named Road Fighter. We planned to reproduce this game as a part of our CMPE 244 project. The goal is to reach the finish line without running out of time, avoiding other cars on the road or running out of fuel .The fuel is refilled by hitting petrol pump which the player can encounter at random location during the course of the game. The player also needs to prevent car from hitting the edge of the road to prevent the collision.
Objectives & Introduction
The primary goal of this project is to develop a racing game based on Road Fighter using FreeRTOS using SJ2 Board and to drive the LED matrix. The game's objective is to finish the finish line before running out of fuel and avoiding the obstacles and other cars on the road. The LED matrix is interfaced using the GPIO pins and the on board accelerometer is interfaced using I2C communication protocol.
Objectives:
- Write drivers to display road, car, traffic, score, fuel status on the RGB LED matrix and update the display continuously.
- Write drivers to give directions from the input devices ie accelerometer and filter the values to get accurate and desired values.
- Implement game algorithm for movement of car, random obstacle car and update scores and fuel status.
- Create FeeRTOS tasks for display, accelerometer values, game logic and understand the communication and synchronization between them.
Team Members & Responsibilities
Schedule
| Week# | Date | Deliverables | Status |
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| 1 | 09/29 |
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| 2 | 10/12 |
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| 3 | 10/16 |
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| 4 | 10/23 |
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| 5 | 10/30 |
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| 6 | 11/06 |
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| Week# | Date | Deliverables | Status |
| 7 | 11/13 |
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| Week# | Date | Deliverables | Status |
| 8 | 11/24 |
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| 9 | 12/1 |
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| Week# | Date | Deliverables | Status |
| 10 | 12/8 |
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| 11 | 12/13 |
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Parts List & Cost
| Part | # | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SJ2 Board | 1 | $55.00 | Preet |
| Azerone 32 x 64 LED Matrix | 1 | $34.95 | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F2JW8D3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
| HiLetgo MP3 Decoder | 1 | $7.64 | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0725RHR4D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
| Female Male DC Power Plug Terminal Adapter | 1 | $6.54 | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00W058HHQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
| PCB | 1 | $19.00 | https://jlcpcb.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA0NfvBRCVARIsAO4930nyv9BTfWyVz9KqLUyJRwS_FK0Hp6ldhHof8L-kW1jctHch8ahMC7waAhpSEALw_wcB |
| Digital Audio Amplifier | 1 | $ | |
| Push Button Switch | 1 | $7.99 | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SVTQ7B9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
| Audio Speakers | 1 | $7.99 | |
| 40 Pin GPIO Ribbon Cable | 1 | $ 9.99 | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H53OK5U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
| 3.5mm TS Mono Male to 2 Pin Screw Terminal Female AUX Headphone Balum Converter | 1 | $ | |
| 1 | $ |
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
The hardware design employs the use of 64x32 RGB LED matrix panel which is the most important part of the project, this uses four data lines namely A,B,C and D which can be addressed and used to control each LED which has following technical specifications:
Dimensions:
- 110.1 x 5 x 0.2 inches
Operation Power
- AC100-240V 50-60HZ Switch-able
- 5V regulated power input, 4A max (all LEDs on)
- 5V data logic level input
- 4mm pitch
- Module Refresh: 1560hz
PCB Design
For PCB Design we used the Eagle PCB Design software. It is not free software for commercial use but is free for students. Preet took a short session on PCB designing which helped to get us started. A great advantage of Eagle PCB is that we can importAdafruit and Sparkfun library into the PCB Design software. This allows us to use the built-in footprints and schematic components of Sparkfun and Adafruit which makes designing and ordering the parts easier. The software is easy to use for a beginner.
The steps involved in the PCB design process are described in the next section.
Schematic Design:
Our Schematic is simple. We added header pins, for making connections from the LED matrix, MP3 decoder to SJ2 board and external power power pins.
Display PCB schematic:
Display PCB has two independent circuits. One circuit is to connect SJOne board to LED panel connector and with two piezo buzzers. While another circuit is to connect one unused power cable of LED panel to SJOne board so that we don't have to power SJOne board from PC while we are playing the game. Our preliminary idea was to make this PCB, a Arduino kind of shield but for SJOne board.
Console PCB schematic:
In this game, console is used to move the basket to catch fast falling eggs and if there were any wires attached to console then it is very inconvenient for the user to play. so, we decided to make PCB which can charge battery and power the console while the user is playing. As shown in figure, the heart of the circuit is microchip's MCP73831 LiPo battery charging management IC. One LED is connected to it's Status Pin which glows when the battery is charging. A mini USB B port is used to connect to power resource (PC or any 5V mobile charger)via USB cable to charge the battery. while playing the game, the user must connect USB A port to SJOne Board's mini USB B port. To use the console on battery power user must turn on/off switch.
PCB Layout:
After schematic design, the most important step is to connect the PCB layout. In KiCAD components is not automatically associated with it's PCB footprint, so it's user's responsibility to connect right PCB footprint with the right components. In our case, we did not have the footprint of JLC connector and Rocker switch. so, we created it in a different window and saved it. The amazing feature of KiCAD is once we have done with PCB layout we can visualize PCB in 3D by pressing just one button. Below are actual screenshots of both, PCB layout & their 3D model.
Display PCB layout:
Console PCB layout:
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.
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.
Display Module
RGB LED Matrix:
| SJ One Board Pin | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| P1_14 | R1 | Top half red data |
| P4_29 | G1 | Top half green data |
| P0_7 | B1 | Top half blue data |
| P4_28 | R2 | Bottom half red data |
| P0_6 | G2 | Bottom half green data |
| P0_8 | B2 | Bottom half blue data |
| P0_26 | addrA | Address Input A |
| P1_31 | addrB | Address Input B |
| P1_20 | addrC | Address Input C |
| P1_28 | addrD | Address Input D |
| P2_0 | Clock | Shift clock |
| P2_2 | Latch | Shift in row data/Active High |
| P2_5 | Output Enable | Turn on selected rows/Active Low |
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
Issues, Challenges and solutions to get past them
1. RGB LED Matrix Display driver We first started by porting Adafruit’s LED driver for Arduino, however we could not get it running. So we started to implement our own driver. It worked well for the bottom half of the matrix but not the top half. We debugged the code, later to realize that the SJ2 board pins which we were using for R1, G1 and B1 were not working properly. We used other GPIO pins and it solved the issue.
2. MP3 Decoder
3. Low level Audio Sound
4. Pause Bug When we paused the game, the display was frozen but after hitting the play button, the position of the car was way off when we paused. We realized that our accelerometer kept updating the position of the car, it was just not displayed. To solve this issue we now update the values only in the GAME PLAY state.
Conclusion
We were able to successfully design the Road Max Fury game using the RGB LED Matrix and the SJ2 board. This project helped us in having a better understanding of the FreeRTOS scheduler tasks that were used to handle the various components of the game. The understanding developed in writing the display driver from the scratch proved beneficial in resolving issues since most of the available libraries are in C++ and we encountered many problems while porting and debugging in the initial testing phase. Even though there weren't many proper datasheets and reliable tutorials for the LED Matrix, some previous semester's project report on the same display helped us gain momentum in the initial stages. We also got to work on the MP3 decoder while incorporating audio for the game design. Not only did this project help us in understanding the practical possibilities with boards like SJ2 board but also instilled in us a sense of team work and accountability for individually assigned task that helped the team overall.
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Project Source Code
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