ECE 4330 Project Proposal 2

“Blackout” LED Gameby

Nick Hermanson

Overview• The game ‘blackout’ is

a game simple in concept.

• Using a grid of lights, one can select a single light at a time to toggle. Toggling any light will also toggle any neighboring lights.

• The goal of the game is to make the entire grid either on or off.

An example of a blackout-style game implemented in flash for play online. (Image found using Google with “lights out”, game hosted at www.gotoandplay.it)

Hardware

• The hardware required for this project consists entirely of a somewhat complex set of LEDs arranged in a grid.

• Each LED will be connected to one pin of one of the ports of the STK500.

• Since there are 4 ports with 8 pins each available, this results in a maximum of 32 LEDs, with the largest square grid possible being 5x5.

• (Optional) For dynamism, the hardware can be allowed to vary for different sized grids from 1x1 to 5x5. If this is implemented, the software will have to deal with how things work from there.

Software• If the optional dynamic hardware is implemented, the software will

initialize the system into a “mode select” state.• Following the “mode select” state (if present), the software will set

its variables appropriately for a grid of the proper size.• Once the values are initialized, the game will begin. The user will

select a row, and then a column, to pinpoint the LED that is to be toggled, using the switches on the STK500.

• When selecting a column, the selected row’s LED will light up on the STK500, and an unused switch on the STK500 (probably switch 7) can be used to cancel the row selection and go back.

• If at any point the game is ‘won’ by all LEDs being turned off, they will flash on and off until the system is reset, or one of the switch is pressed, at which point it can be played again.

Potential Problems.

• The main problem visible at this time is aquiring the LEDs to be used in constructing the playgrid(s), and connecting them to the STK500.

• The code involved will be a somewhat complicated state machine with a large quantity of table lookup, and perhaps a small amount of calculation. Debugging the code could be time consuming.