Intern report: Building a micro:bit Space Shooter arcade game
Editor’s Note, because your Editor likes making Notes: Joelle interned with us in 2017, and did a variety of projects: teaching classes, writing scripts that improved our productivity a couple thousandfold, making a micro:bit-powered confetti launcher for some reason, and doing R&D on making Scratch work with the micro:bit. Here’s what she made for Maker Faire 2017…
Maker Faire 2017 Singapore was a blast! I had so much fun building/crafting/making a cardboard arcade game, as part of Tinkercademy’s Arcade of Many Bits. My contribution was a space-themed shooting arcade, called Space Shooters.
The game comprises a home-made PVC-pipe gun, which fires off an IR signal to various cardboard aliens. Each of these—the gun, the aliens—is connected to a micro:bit, which drives the various functions (sending IR, receiving IR, as well as various lights and displays).
Building and programming the gun was the easy part. What was difficult was the design and thought process that went into it.
On the day of Maker Faire, when the arcade was ready to be played by the public, I discovered a grave mistake that I made… or rather, something I didn’t make—the gun had really low durability. Throughout the fair, bits and pieces of the gun kept coming apart, especially the parts that were hot-glued. (Lesson learned: I should have used PVC glue, and clamped the pieces together.) This left me with no choice but to duct tape everything. Parts that were falling apart, parts that had fallen apart… all duct taped.
Another major issue that I discovered as the Faire started, was that some users could not understand how all the features on the gun worked! That’s a major no-no on user experience. An arcade game should be easily understood by everyone, especially little kids—we shouldn’t need someone to stand by the arcade explaining to others how the game actually works. Anyways, this wasn’t nearly as bad as a gun that disintegrated every other minute.
Check out all the micro:bits powering each of the aliens!
P.S the gun was in 2 pieces by the end of the fair… you can take a look if you visit or attend Tinkercademy X.
Lesson learned: don’t build something that breaks so easily. Also, all hail duct tape.
Editor’s Note: Joelle is a fourth-year Computer Engineering student at the National University of Singapore. She interned with us, first from January to June 2017 as part of a university attachment programme, then because she impressed us, stayed on for another two months to make this awesome project. She hand-sawed, assembled, and programmed every part of this game! Joelle’s a hard worker who’s proven to be an eager learner, and she’s been very adaptable in taking on a large variety of projects during her internship. Thanks Joelle! All the best for your final year.