Crash+Burn
Full source code for Charnival's fire spewing bumper cars aptly named Crash+Burn.
This project will have the following, distinct, design components:
- Bumper Car Controller (i.e., microcontroller code)
- Communications Protocol
- Server Coordinator
- Server Graphical User Interface (GUI)
Here are the basic responsibilities I envision for each of these components:
Bumper Car Controller
- Reads the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) / Sensor data, performs filtering, reacts to state changes appropriately
- Reads sensors (and buttons?) on the car and reacts to their state changes appropriately
- Tip sensor
- Seat deadman
- Acceleration petal
- Reads and reacts to incoming serial data from the Server Coordinator, data adheres to the Communications Protocol
- Writes serial data output to the Server Coordinator, data adheres to the Communications Protocol
- Controls the Flame Effect System (solenoid, spark-gap/ignitor, coordination of gas and ignition)
- Controls the LED "Screen" System (mapping, colour assignment, etc.)
- Shortcut safety control/reaction system (e.g., car tips over => stop fire/shut down immediately)
- Holds functionality for a set of pre-scripted display routines for the LEDs (... or not: depends if we want the server to do this and just play them back via the network)
Overall, the Bumper Car Controller is a slave to the Server Coordinator. Any non-slavey-type-stuff that it does stays local (i.e., a bumper car never tells the server what to do).
##Communications Protocol
The protocol is a specification for the functionality that will be present in both the Bumper Car Controllers and the Server Coordinator.
See details in the protocol folder.
Server Coordinator
- Discovers and assigns identification Bumper Car Controllers (other option is to hardcode this, as mentioned above)
- Tracks addresses/endpoints and sessions for bumper car communications
- Reads and reacts to incoming data from one or more Bumper Car Controllers, data adheres to the Communications Protocol
- Writes outgoing events/commands/queries to one or more Bumper Car Controllers, data adheres to the Communications Protocol
- Assesses the likelihood of collisions between bumper cars and utilizes the Communications Protocol to inform colliding cars of their respective colliders and/or sends the effects for reacting to the collision
- Maintains an updated version of the state information for all known Bumper Car Controllers
Overall, the Server Coordinator acts as a layer between the network and the Server GUI, providing the interface and logic responsible for communicating with and coordinating the Bumper Car Controllers.
Server GUI
- Updates its visual state based off the state of the Server Coordinator
- Control panel featuring the display and control widgets for all discovered bumper cars and their respective states
- Buttons for Activating/Deactivating individual cars
- Buttons for Activating all cars and Deactivating all cars
- Paint canvas for car LEDs?
The GUI is both a view into the Server Coordinator and a (hopefully user-friendly) method of updating the entire system's state via visual information / files / etc.