The START button begins the game from either the welcome, win, or fail stages.
After completing the IR Stratafyer quest, the geologist must press the Jack Hammer or Shovel button before the Digger can begin using their tools.
"STRATAFYER"
Figure 1: the TIVA controls 4 sets of LEDS, each with 1 blue and 1 infrared. The Geologist will investigate the first set when the game begins, just after the START button is pushed.
Figure 2: the TIVA receives signals from an infrared transistor to indicate the Geologist has correctly investigated a rock layer. This will trigger the Jack Hammer or Shovel button to accept pushes.
Misc. LEDs
Colored LEDs litter our game to communicate the following:
Game button light when TIVA is prepared to read their pushes
Jack Hammer lights to indicate hammering is currently necessary!
Depth bar to the aquifer lights to keep the digger aware of the team's progress.
Jack hammer
When lit, the Digger should move the Jack Hammer up and down.
It's attached to the linear potentiometer, pictured right, which feeds analog voltage to TIVA.
TIVA integrates over the voltage changes, and eventually, scores the layer completed.
It's now the Geologist's turn again to investigate, or game over if it was the final layer of digging.
Shovel
The Shovel consists of two circuits:
The Digger is prompted to start using the shovel when it begins to vibrate, which is initiated when the Geologist presses the Shovel Button.
Shovel use is measured by use of the accelerometer, which feeds anolog voltages to TIVA. It's scored similarly to the Jack Hammer.
Stepper Motor
Our game clock is a mechanical wheel, which is turned by a stepper motor to display different phases of the game.
The Enable line is set low while the game is on so that the motor is active.
The Direction line is set high when the motor is to turn clockwise and is set low when the motor is to turn counter-clockwise.
The Step line is pulse to take a 1.8 degree rotation per pulse.
Wave Trigger
Many events during the game induce sounds or soundtracks to begin playing. For example, when the game begins and ends, or when the stratafyer / shovel / jack hammer are being used etc.
This was accomplished using the Wave trigger to the left. Up to 16 tracks could be loaded via USB and triggered to begin by setting TRIG1-TRIG16 high.
We could not dedicate this many TIVA ports to sound, so we made use of two cascaded shift registers to control the wave trigger using only 3 TIVA ports.
5V Line
When (or IF!) the Digger and Geologist are able to win the game by making their way down to the aquifer, several services are called:
At right, the line illustrated will be set to 5V by setting pin 6 low.
The game clock will roll to a winning phase.
The Start button will light and be ready to accept pushes to start the next game.