Arrrspiration
Aye, I be workin’ on two other contraptions—a mighty PCB Name Tag with an ePaper scroll and a scurrying Micromouse. I thought to meself, "Why not hoist the sails and combine ‘em into one grand adventure?" And thus, The Pirate’s Booty was born! Built upon the salvaged hull of a Micromouse and the remnants of an ePaper display, this be a vessel of learnin’, designed to plunder the depths of me knowledge on these here components!
What it does
This cursed treasure chest holds its loot tight—unlockin’ only if ye enter the right passcode… if ye can catch it! Arrr, but beware! After yer third attempt, the chest will get spooked and flee! It’ll scurry away for five seconds before comin’ to a halt. Should ye dare approach the final button for entry, the chest will once again bolt! If cornered, it'll change course like a ship dodgin’ cannon fire and take off again. Only the bravest buccaneers who capture the chest shall claim the booty!
How we built it
The treasure trove be powered by these fine pieces o’ loot:
- Raspberry Pi Pico – the heart o’ the beast
- 2x VL6180 Time-of-Flight Sensors – for spyin’ landlubbers approachin'
- BNO085 Inertial Measurement Unit – keeps track o’ where the seas be takin’ us
- Pervasive Displays’ E2266KS0C1 ePaper Display – the ancient scroll of knowledge
- Pervasive Display’s EXT3-1 Kit – makin’ sure the scroll be displayin’ proper pirate maps
- L293D H-Bridges – drivin’ the ship’s mighty wheels
- TT Motors – the sea legs o’ this contraption
- Assorted riggin’ and hardware
Perils we faced on the high seas
Did I mention this be a true hack?
We be takin’ our cutlass to the libraries of the ePaper display, bendin’ ‘em to our will to allow arbitrary code execution. Aye, the original scroll magic only let us display a few pitiful fonts and shapes, but we wanted to carve any bitmap onto our ancient screen.
Decipherin’ the ancient texts (protocols and libraries) for this display was a battle worthy of legend. Many a moon passed as we read scrolls of source code, facin’ countless trials and errors. But in the end, we forged a new font library—one that let us craft a single mighty glyph to take up the whole screen, thus allowin’ us to display whatever cursed image we wished.
How did we conjure this magic? A python script, of course! It takes in a .png, runs it through a mystical process of posterization and resizing, and spits out a sacred header file ready to be inscribed onto the ePaper.
Ah, but the real beast we fought was Integration Hell! Our ship had many parts—motors, sensors, a scroll of knowledge, and a sturdy hull—all needin’ to work together in under 24 hours. We lost many good hours of sleep to this cursed task, piecin’ together the parts like a map to buried treasure.
Accomplishments that make us shout "Yo-ho-ho!"
At last, the treacherous map has been tamed! What once was a cursed scroll, leadin’ us astray with its rigid and unyieldin’ ways, now bends to our will. With the power of arbitrary bitmaps, we can chart any course we desire! No longer must we squint at the default fonts and shapes—we now etch our own pirate symbols, hidden messages, and maps to riches untold. The ePaper, once a false guide to nowhere, now shows the true path forward, guidin’ us toward victory. With this, we forge ahead, masters of our fate, and captains of our own digital sea!
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