Mechatronics Live-Action Battleship (ME 218C)
Challenge
Use the class-devised communications protocol and a PIC microcontroller to play battleship against our classmates over the internet. In the style of the board game Captain Sonar, our three-person team commanded the torpedo, sonar, and conn stations to communicate information within our team and to our opponents.
Outcome
An integrated hardware & software solution that enabled us to accurately hear other teams' signals broadcast across the internet and respond accordingly to play the game.
Slight hearing loss and some very relieved family members who were glad that they would no longer have to listen to "amber alerts" at all times of the day.
Background
During the first online quarter of the COVID-19 pandemic, our class was tasked with devising and implementing a communications protocol that would enable the entire class to transmit and receive messages on the PIC microcontroller platform.
This task involved working with other teams in the class to create an appropriate strategy, setting up our hardware and software to be able to interpret the tones transmitted to us (map the frequency of the signal to a corresponding dibit), and building out a system that could support up to 24 people using their laptops from around the world. The task we completed was playing a game of live-action battleship, similar to the board game Captain Sonar.
My Role
Deliverable
Member of the class-wide Communications Committee, co-conspirator on design of overarching software state machine
Product Impact
An integrated solution using a PIC microcontroller that could take-in user input as well as translate other users' outputs.
Delivered a functional system that also featured a GUI made by one of my teammates. First team to complete challenge.
Key Learnings
Hardware-software integration, state machine design, communications protocols, assembly, git management, C
Timeline
2 months, May - June 2020