RacePIezo

Inspiration

We've never worked with piezo elements before, and wanted to do a hardware only hack. No microcontrollers, no software, just logic.

What it does

RacePiezo is a racing game fun for people of all ages! Challenge a friend to a game, and see who can light up their LED the fastest!

How I built it

This project was built strictly using hardware components. No software required. When physical force is applied, the piezo element sends a voltage impulse through an inverter. This voltage pulse increments a counter and LEDs keep track of each player's position. Once a winner is decided, that player's winning light illuminates and the opposing player is prevented from continuing to play. An audible alarm is heard to notify players that a winner has been determined.

Challenges I ran into

Typical hardware related problems such as broken chips or incorrect wiring. The piezo element did not give a clean voltage spike, and occasionally interfered with an accurate counter operation (sometimes the counter incremented more than once). We also blew a fuse in our powered breadboard, and (unfortunately) had to rely on an arduino to power our circuit.