Idea for an eductional project: Game "The busy *** boy, girl, Ken, ...."

Christof Eb. · 2020-07-25 06:56

Ken Gracey wrote: »

The bigger question in my mind is what we'd do with the P2 in education. I don't see strapping it on a rolling robot chassis as all that interesting, but making an educational program (remember the "Understanding Signals" tutorial?) that looks inside of communication protocols, analog and digital signals and parallel processing could be useful for engineers and education. The only problem with this approach is that the market is smaller than, say, robotics.

All thoughts are welcome!

Ken Gracey

Hi, this is an idea for game as a school project:

A plywood board with a frame around a part of it,
a P2-board attached to it with batteries.
Some small display, perhaps not needed.
A small speaker, needed!
Some LEDs
Some Flat coils
A metal ball d=10mm

Game:
The metal ball is rolling on the board. The player has to hold the board in the right inclination to steer the ball.
The board has a number (10?) of places marked and with LEDs. A coil on the back side can detect, if the metal ball reaches the place.
If a LED is lit, you have to go to this place as fast as possible. Time is recorded, sound files are played. (Speech?)
Holes are drilled, where the ball can fall through.

The student can design the board and the places with paint as he/she likes.
If it's busy Ken, these places might be:
* Mail computer in his office
* Meeting room
* production xx
* test lab
* place, where he eats
* the coffee machine
* the charging station for his phone
* ...

I had a metal detector with p1, so I think, that the coil sensors should work. (Cannot find it in the forum. Perhaps this was the old forum?)
Edit: Found the basis: https://www.parallax.com/sites/default/files/downloads/122-32305-PE-Kit-Labs-Fundamentals-Text-v1.2.pdf
Page 181.

Thoughts?

Regards Christof

Edit: Got P1 running with the code "CalibrateMetalDetector.spin". Coil has 8 windings and D=24mm. Together with C=100p it gives reaction at about 8MHz.
Can detect a steel ball D=11mm through 4mm plywood!