Maze Craze Weekly Log

Week of 1/23/17

• We formulated our team and brainstormed ideas for our project. Then, we decided on our maze game idea and began writing a simple project proposal.

Week of 1/30/17

• We wrote a starting proposal for Maze Craze including a Gantt chart and budget. After meeting with our TA Natalie, we solidified our proposal and overall project idea.
• Once the project proposal is approved, we will design our game board and layout for the maze so that we can order parts to begin construction.
• In addition, we seem to have a clear schedule of when we will be able to work on the project individually and together.

Week of 2/6/17

• We started designing a layout for our game board with possible dimensions that may be subject to change depending on the parts we ultimately use.
• Revisions were made to the project proposal by editing the project description, budget, objectives and challenges. The budget still needs a few prices to be confirmed as we finalize our decisions on a few parts such as the amount of wood we will need which will depend on the final dimensions we choose for our board.

Week of 2/13/17

• This week we had serious problems with our budget. We had to overhaul almost everything on it in order to stay under $150. All of the items below have been added to our budget:

1. We found a new website to order the LED RGB strips.
2. We reduced our order of hall effect sensors to 27 as we only require 25 but want to have a couple extra.
3. We found cheaper spray paint for $3.87 rather than $8.00.
4. We are now ordering a 5V 10 Amp Power Supply rather than using battery packs to power the Arduino.
5. We found cheaper screws that will still suffice to keep our box together.
6. We also found out that we needed 10K Resistors in order to use the hall effect sensors properly.
7. Instead of using LEDs for the number displays we will be using cheaper analog number displays.
8. We found a cheaper breadboard that should achieve our needs.
9. We also need a female DC power adapter to connect the power supply to the Arduino.
10. We will also be upgrading our Arduino to a Mega Arduino.

Week of 2/20/17

• This week we ordered:

1. All the Sparkfun items (Lights, Hall Effect Sensors, Resistors, and Switch)
2. Breadboards

• We visited Home Depot to get our wood, screws, paint, etc.
• Jason mocked up a basic version of the game in Java. The two versions we mocked up were:

1. A version that generates a random maze every move
2. A version that cycles between two mazes with every move

• We discussed the "maze generating" algorithm and how each maze will be created
• Liz mocked up the basic wall/sensor code on an Arduino. It:

1. Models a set of walls (with LEDs)
2. Responds to a user's button presses by lighting a different set of walls (modeled by LEDs)
3. Does not respond if a user doesn't move but just "sets their piece back down" (modeled by buttons)
4. Waits for a player to set their piece in the "start" position to begin the game