midterm project: make, present & report

Turn & Link – Anya Zhukova (& Isabel)– Haider Gottfried

Our project was inspired by a minimalistic game “Linko” as it is mentioned in the proposal. We did not end up creating a kids-friendly game, however we have, in my opinion, succeeded in creating a fun interactive iteration of a linking game. Our goal was to make people want to engage with the pieces and feel rewarded when solving the puzzle, which we were striving to achieve by incorporating bright colors, the song and rainbow LEDs.

In the first week of making, we had a lot of problems with actually finding out ways how to connect the pieces (they should form a circuit when turned at a certain way). Cardboard pieces were too light to be pressing themselves onto the copper tape. So we sought help from Andy and he proposed this idea of attaching the plastic in a certain way and then fixating the position of a piece for it to apply pressure on the plastic, so that the copper tape is pressed onto another copper tape. So, as we spent a very long time figuring out the mechanics of that, our code and the game overall was not as finished as we wanted it to be. Regardless, we hoped that it would be just enough for the first User Testing, as it might give us an idea/inspiration regarding how we should approach future enhancements of our prototype. So, during the User Testing we have received tons of valuable feedback such as: 

• to make the the paths more evident (to be evident that it should be solved)
• make everything (especially the pieces) more colorful overall
• add LEDs! our weak LEDs were not providing much reward. + they were so dim
• maybe add some sound as well

so, we did all of that. we added the LED strip, we added the sound and we added bright and fun colors. (code and photos could be seen in the end of the post). 

I believe we have dealt with the feedback in a best way possible. 

As for this process of enhancement, we were meeting pretty much everyday with Isa to do the work and we were finishing up the thing on Tuesday. As I was in charge of the code, I can share something that I was making the mistake with like an hour before the presentation and which, I thought at the time, would be the reason for our fail. Basically, as we added the LED strip, our dim single-LED did not serve any purpose other than to receive a signal that the circuit is connected (I was using INPUT_PULLOUT) however I didn’t know that by leaving OUTPUT mode has affected the precision with which the LED was detecting the absence or occurrence of the signal. So yeah, some LED were transferring “undetected” signal even when were connected and visa-versa. So, yeah, that took me a while to fix. Then also the LED strip had some issue with any tape other than the paper one. Not sure why, but they did, so we had re-attach it. We also thought that maybe copper tape sometimes reserving some energy which sometimes resulted in incorrect reaction. But that was rare. 

As for the cardboard and painting, we didn’t have many issues, except for that on the last day we had to replace some LEDs and one cardboard piece (as it kind of loosened up and wan’t connecting the circuits) in the right places we didn’t have the right paint. But that was a minor issue. During the process we also had some copper tape issues so we have soldered two places manually. 

On the last day, I also had an idea of displaying the turning movement using a motor to showcase what the players are supposed to do. We just did the Sweep example and attached the thing using a hand-made cardboard box next to the sign “Turn and Link”. 

I believe our presentation went good. I believe copper tape has been storing some energy on the pieces so it sometimes transferred the “connected” signal regardless of whether the puzzle has or has not been solved.

Speaking of the areas for the improvement, I believe  we could:

• make the game work better (maybe enhance the copper tape or connectivity)
• add some levels (so that there is not only 1 solution/one reward (maybe add a different song for something that did not work)
• the single-LEDs should not be visible if they only are used as a signal determinator. 
• handles on the pieces to enhance the 

It was interesting that the motor with the piece was perceived as something intimidating, that was hinting that players should go faster in solving the puzzle. Maybe the clock could be actually added. 

The photos: 

video of how i works: 304

the circuit:

the circuit is very close to the reality (the pins are right). One big difference is that the LED strip is much bigger (in number of pixels).

code: