Planet Arduino

If you’re tired of classic tower building games like Jenga or stacking cards and would like a new challenge, “mr_fid” has come up with a game where you balance blocks on a tree assembly. The nicely crafted device then moves around to throw the blocks off using three servos and push rods.

Everything is controlled by an Arduino Nano that randomly selects the intensity of the movement and which color of block to be stacked, displayed on a circular arrangement of programmable LEDs.

Once a block has been added, a button in the middle of the LEDs is pushed and tree movement starts, potentially destabilizing the player’s work.

Nice Arduino project. Featuring an Arduino Nano controlling 3 servos to move the tree. Firstly the “Roll” button is pressed to give you a colour and amplitude once the correct bit has been placed on the tree the “Shake” button is pressed and the tree moves around. Any bits which fall off are given to the person whos go it was! the idea of the game is to get rid of all your bits first. If when you press the “Roll” button you don’t have the correct colour OR the strength is to high then if you wish you can miss your go.

You can check the game out in the first video below, or see the second video for information on how to avoid jittery servos in this type of setup.

If you’re familiar with the Segway or other vehicles that balance in what is known as an “inverted pendulum” configuration, you may think that while interesting, creating something similar would be too complicated or out of your budget. Though perhaps still not simple, Joop Brokking takes you through his design for this type of bot in the video seen here, making it accessible if you’d like to build your own.

The robot, which will cost about $80 in parts, uses two stepper motors for greater movement precision than could be had with normal DC models, and employs an Arduino Pro Mini, along with an MPU-6050 accelerometer/gyroscope for control. It can be driven around by a Wii U-style nunchuck, which transmits to the robot via an Arduino Uno and wireless transceiver module.

You can find more info and product links for this project on Brokking.net.