Week 15. System Integration

This week's brief:

Assignment:

Design and document the system integration for your final project

Modular GamePad

This week the main objective was to thoughrly think about how we can package the hardware components of our final project.

The Idea is that macropads can be rearranged with various modules and compose different layouts using a magnetic connector system to play differentgames.. The modularity allows it to flexible to able to perform many tasks. The Original idea was to create a physical board game of the classic minesweeper game. As the idea progressed it was seen that making the whole board modualr was the efficient way to go. So if the gamepad is modular why not expand its scope? This was the question that led be reach this point in my journey.

The biggest challenge came while trying to integrate all the components with in the dimensional constraints. The body of the macropad could not be made bigger to accomodate the components .So I had to figure out many ways in which the electronics can be placed within.

Inspo Board

I pulled inspiration from various products and graphics for the colour, feel, design etc. I basically wanted a retro feel with a pop of colour to maintain playfulness.

Exploration Sketches

Block Diagram

We had to make a block diagram to visualise and connect various aspects of the project.

Features

Macropads with addresable LEDs

A smoke diffuser when a mine is clickes on / When you win the game

A Rotary encoder to choose difficulty level / Change games.

A power On/Off Button

Display that shows the score and menu.

Userflow

Schedule

Bill of Materials

Modular Connections

Design

Iteration 1

In the first ideation the plan was to make the keypad jump up mwhenever a mine was pressed. I tried many methods to implement this concept but it turned out to be quite complicated. One of the ways we tried to this was to place a servo ath the bottom of the body and eject the pad using the horn attached .I made a cardboard mockup to try this out and alos check how the dimensons turned out. But there wer issues with the centering and lifting all the parts equally.

As it was taking up a significant portion of my time trying to find a solution , i thought of moving on with another iteration.

Iteration 2

The next plan was to separte the lifting up mechanism as a separate module . This seemed to a better option as the gamepad is going to be used for a variety of games anyway which may not require this mechanism.

Moving forward with this plan, I needed to finalise the dimensions of the module. Instead of soldering on seperate LEDs, my instructors advised me to use a Led strip which will cut a lot of work as i have to make 4 modules.

The next challenge was to fix a button size because i wanted 2 LEDs under a single button . So the buttons needed to be sized and separated properly after which the overall dimensions can be decided.

The placement of connectors were a important part for the packing. There needed to be pogo connectors on all 4 sides of a module so that it can be connected in any manner. The electronics design proceede keeping this mind. The connectors needed to be separatly connected from the main PCB as there woulld be confilct while tracing the connections.