Planet Arduino

One of the most popular machines in any arcade is the Cyclone game, where a ring of LEDs illuminate in sequence and the player must push a button at the exact moment that a specific LED lights up. Get it just right and you can win a whole pile of tickets to spend in the arcade shop! But the machines in arcades tend to be rigged, with the timing altered slightly to make the game more difficult. This mini Cyclone game saves you a trip to the arcade and doesn’t employ cheats (unless you want it to).

This is the second Cyclone game built by Mirko Pavleski. The first was much larger, with a ring of 60 LEDs. The new version is smaller and simpler. It has a ring of only 12 LEDs. The original increased the speed with each round, but this version sets a random speed (within a predefined range) each time. It tracks the number of rounds completed by a player before they fail and saves that high score in EEPROM storage so it is persistent every time someone turns on the game.

The hardware is affordable and easy to find. It includes an Arduino Nano board, a WS2812B LED ring, a 16×2 character LCD with I2C interface, two buttons, a power switch, and a buzzer. Those components all mount to a basic stand made of PVC board and plywood wrapped in self-adhesive wallpaper. If you’re a fan of Cyclone games, this would make a great weekend project.

The post Mini Cyclone game doesn’t require a trip to the arcade appeared first on Arduino Blog.

After picking up a free arcade machine, YouTuber “Another Maker” has naturally been considering what to do with it. One of the more interesting components included is the 1/5/10/20 U.S. dollar bill acceptor, which he outlines in the video below.

The cash reader is powered by a 12V supply, and “emulates” quarter inputs to the machine by sending multiple signals for each bill. Meaning, a dollar would be output as four quarters, five times that for a five dollar bill, and so on. This functionality is shown at the end of the clip on an Arduino Mega with an LCD keypad shield. The machine also has a 5V input, which can activated by an Arduino to make it flash LEDs and reject all bills when “business is closed.”

The code that enables it to read the device can be found on GitHub. And in case you’re wondering what Another Maker ended up building…