Finally, coming back to the present day, I now feel confident about what my final project will be. After realizing that politics is not something I want to focus on, I decided to create a game that helps people relax and think about positive things. Below is an AI-generated image of the game concept:

AI prompt: “Generate a photorealistic image of a tabletop maze game made from wood, featuring a small robotic car collecting glowing coins, obstacles, and walls. Include a digital display showing coins collected and time left, and a joystick controller held by a human hand.”

The game will be built on an MDF board, featuring a robot that will be controlled using a joystick. The goal is to collect a predefined number of coins within a limited time.

The coins will be implemented using light sensors, and each time the robot passes over a sensor, the collected coin count will be displayed on a screen. If all the coins are collected within the given time, the screen will display “Win”, otherwise “Game Over.”

I hope I will be able to bring this idea to completion, and that together with the FabLab team, we will have a new game.

Now let’s look step by step at how I am reaching my final project idea — I hope I will get there 😄

Since each of my weeks has been dedicated to building some part of the final project, the process feels more organized and structured.

I already had a clear idea of how I wanted the game environment to look. During this week, I learned OpenSCAD and transferred my ideas onto paper, then modeled them digitally.

Here is the result.

I improved my OpenSCAD skills and modified my design. I created an algorithm to generate the labyrinth randomly, so each run produces a different layout.

I used a laser cutter to make a 300mm x 300mm test version.

I also created cards generated from random designs.

I programmed a timer system. Using a button, the timer resets and starts again. This helps the player track how fast they collect the coins and allows restarting the game.

This week, I created eyes for my robot car. I hope to include them in the final version 😄

This week, I worked on a more serious part — designing the PCB for my robot car, which includes:

• LCD (to display timer and collected coins)
• NFC reader (RC522) to detect coins (NFC tags)
• 2 motor drivers for movement
• RP2040 microcontroller for the main logic

This week, I got much closer to the final result by using a CNC machine to cut a larger, more refined version of the game board that I initially tested in Week 3.

This week, I also milled the PCB design, which I plan to further improve and optimize in the coming weeks.

This week I implemented one of the main components of my final project — the joystick 😍