IoTankard

Curious IoT test project. Boardgames meet one handed beer drinking controller.

Pin allocation

Device	Pins	Notes
MX Buttons	D4,D5,D6,D7	Add 10k resistors
HC-05 BT	D2,D3	RX, TX
OLED I2D	A4,A5	SCL, SDA
ADXL345	D10,D11,D12,D13	SPI
MotorDriver	D9 (PWM)	Only one needed
IF	A2

3 free digital and 5 analog pins

TODO

• Should the motor drive 2 directions
• Should I add capasitor for motor
• Come up with the connection to laptop
• Try accelerometer SPI communication with 3 wires instead of 4
• Fix double tap provoking a single tap after
• Measure batterylife for one 18650 cell.
• Better visuals for screen

Buttons

MX cherry copies. The key caps are yet to be decided on. Use normal keycaps for first version.

Motor

6V basic motor was used. Went for low durability solution and soldered a big chunk at the tip of axis. With big motor it seems a bit challenging to do short fast wibrations.

Infrared

Things learned

• The sensor stops working if the adjustment screw is over 80 or under 20% of its rotation. Maybe cheap part.

Casing

The Ebin game remote which this was originally supposed to be went through few brainstorming phases and finally came to a handle design. The handle can be used for future projects. For example for a single hand MMO and beer drinking controller.

1. "The Wand"

2. "The Remote"

3. "The Tankard

Trying to see if everything fits inside	Modeled all parts	Closest to final product before first print

NOTE: next version will be done with fusion 360. At the moment of first desing I did not own any licenses to proper 3d design software.

Bluetooth

Things learned

• Do not spend hours of time debugging RX TX wires which are wrong way around.

The game engine this is made for can handle game controller inputs but for first version we went for bluetooth keyboard style and approach.

Converting the serial to key presses I used simple powershell script ( readCOM.ps1 )

    if ($port.IsOpen)
    {
        $data = $port.ReadLine()
        Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
        [System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait($data);

KEY	TRIGGER	NOTES	Ebin boardgame action
Q	Button	Index finger	Travel button
W	Button	Middle finger	Dice
E	Button	Ring finger	Group Dice
R	Button	Pinkey finger	Biome Event
?	IR Sensor	Beer can removed
?	IR Sensor	Beer can inserted
?	Sensor	Swig taken (lenght adjustable)
?	Sensor	Tankard falling from table
?	Sensor	Tankard has not been in hand for 5 seconds (inactivity)
?	Sensor	Tankard in hand
?	Sensor	Tankard tapped on table
?	Sensor	Tankard tapped to table twice
	Sensor	Beer can upside down (Bottoms up)

Trying to explain what I'm doing to team	Some of the prototyping hardware