VR/Real-Life Battleship

We are implementing a hardware build of a battleship game. The game can be played on the station itself or by communicating with a VR counterpart (Quest 2) to play a game of Battleships!

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Inspiration

We all like to play board games. However, they tend to be a bit limited in scope. Missing parts, friends that want to play different board games, amongst many other reasons to want to be able to have a digitized version of the game with real life compatibility.

What it does

Our project has two major components: A physical side, and a software side. The physical side involves an assembled setup to house LEDS that show the battleship game (controlled by ESP32 microcontroller). There are also inputs on the build to be able to play the game. The opponent could either share the box being used (not implemented) or play with a VR partner (90% implemented).

The aforementioned VR game is the software side of the project. Using the UDP protocol, communication through the internet was possible to connect with the ESP32 microcontroller that was controlling the physical build. There is a virtually simulated VR game of battleship being played, with the opponent being the person playing with the physical build.

How we built it

Physical: 3D modelled the entire physical part of the project, laser cut and put pieces together to assemble housing. Had to take an LED strip and wire it such that it was visible as a 10x10 playable grid (Bottom part implemented, not top part)

Software: First, there was the major hurdle of actually getting the microcontroller to send data to the Unity Program. From there, there was the issue of getting Unity to talk to the Quest, an Android based system. Both were established, and a mock game made with imported assets such that we had a functional game within VR between the player and an AI opponent. The VR side of the software was pretty much 100% implemented, however, the code for the Hardware side wasn't finished up, as there were limiting factors in the hardware project (See below).

Challenges we ran into

LEDs ran on 5V and we had only a 3.3V power supply, but three different sources did not have the necessary level shifter hence could not go forward with the project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Made a fully functional VR game Made a mostly complete prototype of the housing for the physical game version.

What we learned

Integration of Hardware and Software. How to rapidly prototype a design.

What's next for VR/Real-Life Battleship

We had a lot of fun making this project and are proud of our progress. We look forward to wrapping it up sometime over the next couple of weekends.

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