Morse Tetris

• 

  Our beautiful creation

Inspiration

The inspiration for this device came from the parts list. While browsing, the speaker caught my eye and I was like "what can we do with that". We then decided on a morse code powered game, where the controller would "yell" at the game to do something. After much deliberation we decided on Tetris for our game of choice for its simplicity (graphically and programmatically), and slow pace that pairs well with delayed controls.

What it does

This is a fully functional game that has a wirelessly connected controller to play Tetris. It has all the basic features needed in a Tetris game, but is a blast to play and is hilarious to deal with the morse code transmission delay.

How we built it

We decided to build this device around the ESP 32 microcontroller because of its capabilities for processing complex audio data, compact size, and ease of programming (we were familiar with Arduino before).

Challenges we ran into

The main issue was getting the microphone to work. Despite our hours of attempts, we were unable to read any data from the microphone onto the microcontroller. Because of this, we made the last minute decision to use a Bluetooth protocol to actually communicate between controllers, but maintained the morse code speaker and delay for its unique mechanics and challenges within the game.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of developing a visually pleasing, fully functional, and nearly bug free Tetris game in such a short time span. We are also proud of learning a new microcontroller with unique features.

What we learned

So much. We learned a lot about embedded systems that we never expected we would need to know. For example, we learned how I2C and I2S protocols worked and how circuits should be built to allow for proper operation. It was exciting to have so many opportunities and to learn how to really incorporate low level processors and hardware together.

What's next for Morse Tetris

The game has obvious merits and could be expanded into a full project, actually using the morse code to communicate, but that would be incredibly time consuming and expensive. Unfortunately, Morse Tetris will have to sit on the back burner for now.

Built With

• arduino
• esp32