Operation: Jamba Juice

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  The assembled game board

Inspiration

In a time where the pandemic has taken a toll on mental health and forces people to be socially distant, we intend to create a game for users that will entertain them whenever they need it. We want the game to be interactive and easy for the user to understand and use. There is also a current movement away from screen time, so we want to be able to create a hands on game that is still exciting and fun to play. There are not many games that include both a physical and electronic component, so this project will be interesting to complete.

What it does

The goal of the game is to make a type of drink while ending with a positive amount of points. In order to make a drink, the user can water the fruits, harvest the fruits, put them in the blender, and blend the fruits.

The game and how we built it

We built an interactive game with both physical and electrical components. The physical parts for the game, including the fruits, blender, and watering can, are 3D printed and painted. The board itself is laser cut and wood glued together. All of the electrical components are run on the Arduino.

In terms of the game itself, the first part of our game requires the user to harvest strawberries and/or blueberries using tweezers without touching the holes in the ground that they are in. The holes are lined with tin foil, so touching the holes can be detected using electrical current. The fruits are 3D printed and painted and have a magnet attached. There is a reed switch for each fruit to detect if that fruit is still in the hole or if it has been harvested. Harvesting the fruit gives you points, while touching the sides causes you to lose points.

At this time, the user can also water the fruits in the ground using a watering can, which gives the user points. This is detected using a tilt switch to see if the user has tipped the watering can to water the plants. The whole game, the LCD screen displays the number of points the user currently has. The user then puts the harvested fruits into the blender, and once three fruits are harvested and in the blender, it is time to blend and make something to drink. The LCD display then tells the user it is time to blend and the watering and harvesting functionalities temporarily pause.

The user then presses the “On” button to start the blender. The type of sensor used here is a pressure sensor. If a small amount of pressure is applied, the user has made sorbet, if a medium amount of pressure is applied, the user has made a smoothie, and if a large amount of pressure is applied, the user has made juice. This drink is also either strawberry, blueberry, or mixed berry depending on which fruits the user has harvested. Making a drink gives the user a certain amount of points. Once the user has made a drink, the type of drink and total amount of points earned shows up on the screen. The background of the screen is red if the user earned negative points or green if the user earned a positive amount of points. Then the game resets and waits for the user to replant all of the fruits. The overall goal is to make a drink while maintaining a positive amount of points.

Challenges we ran into

Some obstacles we faced early in the project were deciding what pieces of hardware to use, since we did not have experience with many of the components we ended up using. We had to decide how to check if the fruits have been harvested, detect if the fruits have been watered, determine the level of blend, and detect if the tweezer was touching one of the sides. An obstacle we didn’t anticipate was that the 3D printing studio ran out of material, so we could not get our board printed in time. Thus, we instead learned how to make the board using Adobe Illustrator, and we used the laser cutter.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we made a fully functioning game that the user can play as long as it is powered. The overall assembly, presentation, and look of the game also went well.

What we learned

We were able to learn about how different sensors worked (reed switches, tilt ball switches, pressure sensors, and hall effect sensors) and also learned how to design and place the different components. In the end, the sensors that we chose worked very well for their desired purposes.

What's next for Operation: Jamba Juice

One next step for this project would be to add more holes for more fruits as well as add different types of fruits, so that the game functionality can be expanded. We could also replace the tin foil that lines the holes for the fruits with a more durable type of metal so that it is stronger and more flush against the sides.

Built With

• atmega328p
• c