Pinball: Newton’s Attic Pinball

One of the most important Cypress distributors is Arrow Electronics.  Recently, I have been talking with our inside people about using Arrow to supply chips for use in a Maker style PSoC project.  Moreover, I will be speaking at Maker Faire NYC in October, and I would like to have a Maker project to show there.  But what project?

In the (incomplete) series about Physics Lab I introduced you to my friend Billy and his non-profit company Newton’s Attic.  He teaches Physics and Engineering classes to Middle School and High School kids. In one of the classes (called Pinball Wizard) taught at Newton’s Attic the kids build a Pinball machine which they take home.  Here are a couple of pictures:

The current focus of the class is on the creative and mechanical side of building the pinball machine.  When I saw the prototype, I immediately thought that I should build an electronics toolkit for easy installation into the machines.  So that is what I am going to do.  To make matters more interesting I am going to finish it and post about it most every day before Maker Faire NYC on 10/1.

The big picture requirements are:

1. Easy for the kids to install
2. Low cost (<$30)
3. Configurable over BLE via a smart phone
4. No programming required
5. Small (about the size of a deck of cards)
6. Glitzy (lots of blinking lights and beeping buzzers)

With all of that in mind I am currently planning on ~$40 (I’m currently over my goal)

1. A PSoC4 BLE as the central processor $12 with 25 IO Pins
2. An I2C based LCD $8 and 2 Pins
3. 2 Capsense Buttons $0 and 2 Pins
4. 2 Buzzers (One for music and one for beeping) $2 and 2 Pins
5. 16 LEDs in a 4×4 matrix $2.5 and 8 Pins
6. 9 Switches in a 3×3 matrix $8 and 6 Pins
7. 1 Printed Circuit Board $5
8. 5V wall wart $5
9. 2 Small DC Motors $2 and 4 pins

My plan is to build an iOS and an Android App that will allow you to configure the electronics.

1. Configure beeps (frequency and duration)
2. Configure the switches to trigger beeps
3. Configure the switches to count points
4. Configure the switches to trigger LEDs
5. Configure patterns of LEDs (flashing and sequence)
6. Configure songs (notes, duration, tempo)
7. Set the triggers and speed for the motors

For the next month I am going to (try) to post each day my progress towards finishing the Pinball machine.

You can find all of the source code and files at the IOTEXPERT site on github.