Game of Life - 10 boards!

[aspro648]

Hey LadyAda,

For our recent family reunion, we wanted an electronic craft project for the older cousins (ages 10 to 16). We chose your Game of Life kit. As each kit was assembled, it was tested and then plugged into the others. We ended up with ten kits, all interacting with each other. It was mesmerizing. The kids did great. I just had to fix a couple of solder bridges and one backwards LED.

The resolution leaves a bit to be desired, but here is the proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNWUaw01miQ
Only one of the boards used the kit's LEDs. Most of them picked out their own colors.

Thanks for providing such a great kit!

Ken

[magician13134]

That's really neat! My question is, how do you plug them in and unplug them when they're attached on more than one side?

[aspro648]

You have to do it by rows. We would plug three together in a row, and then plug that into the next row of three.

The orientation of the boards must be the same, which means the male and female connectors must be in the same positions for each board. Someone plugged a board in wrong and the microcontroller heated up! (It still worked, but I had a spare ready just in case something like that happened.)

Each board had a 2 x AA holder, but with all the boards together, we only kept batteries in one board! As everyone started leaving, we would take their board out, and would give them their own set of batteries to take home.

[magician13134]

Ahh... Right, that makes sense. I'm a little low on the whole common sense scale...

[adafruit]

cool! im going to post it up on the blog. im glad you got it working so nicely

[aspro648]

Hey LadyAda,

I made it into Make, thanks to your Game of Life kit x 10! The editor saw the post here and contacted me to write up a kit review. I made sure to mention that I got them from you (I think they sell them in the Maker Shed too).

http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol16/?pg=180

Next year, maybe we can work out a group discount on some Drawdios! Those look awesome. I'm going to order one to put together over the holiday break.

Many thanks for all you do to make electronics cool.

Ken

[adafruit]

hey cool!