Being that half of our team consisted of electrical engineering students, the thought of integrating an Arduino in our project appealed to us. Since the applications of software are limitless, we decided to share our passions in a way that many individuals could relate to. The idea of creating a video game allowed us to incorporate a variety of skills, namely programming and the building of electrical circuits, in a way that would attract and entertain not only the coding community, but individuals with little knowledge of technology as well.
Our project is an interactive media that allows a vast majority of individuals to enjoy the wonders of computer programming. Using the controller, people have the ability to participate in an easy game that is light-hearted and allows them to better visualize the link between codes and electrical components. Starting in the bottom left corner, the player is challenged to capture the enemy as he travels around the board and attempts to escape. After capturing the enemy three times, you have won the game!
Using a breadboard, our team created an elaborate display of LEDs. After attaching this to an Arduino, we wrote a program that allowed us to control the display of lights. A controller was made for individuals to control the movement of their character, while the code randomly generates the position of the enemy.
There were several challenges that we ran into during ConUHacks. Seeing as it was our first attempt using an Arduino, it was extremely difficult to wire 160 LEDs on the breadboard to only 30 pins on the Arduino. We had to alter our electrical circuits in order to maximize code efficiency.
As it was our first Hackathon, we were very proud of our ability to work in a calm and collected manner during a stressful time. We relied on teamwork in order to combine different skills and accomplish our goal. By share knowledge with one another, our team was able to acquire new experience and create a very successful project! Our team learned that exchanging knowledge is valuable for future success.
The next step for breadBox would be to import more games, by assuring proper resources and coding techniques.