About the Class

"This course provides preparation for the conceptual design and prototyping of mechanical systems that use microprocessors to control machine activities, acquire and analyze data, and interact with operators. The architecture of microprocessors is related to problems in mechanical systems through study of systems,
including electro-mechanical components, thermal components, and a variety of instruments." (taken from class syllabus)

The final project for this course required us to develop an understanding of the role microprocessors play in mechanical systems, with emphasis placed on the practical application of controls design.

Problem:

Given the final project requirements, my team of 5 engineers (including myself) decided to pursue an interactive air hockey table game in which the user can play against a computer-controlled goalie! At the time of this class, we happened to take inspiration from the recent 2022 World Cup in order to challenge ourselves with utilizing similar technology (specifically the way the ball’s position on the field was tracked for the VAR system) but on a much smaller scale.

For our real-time software component, our "ball" (in this case, puck) tracking would use cameras and sensors so that the computer-controlled goalie would know when and which side to move towards to.

For our multitasking component, LED lights would turn on and sound will play simultaneously whenever a goal would be scored.

However, our challenges proved to be:

creating an accurate goalie reaction time to make the game both enjoyable yet challenging
motion-tracking the ball with the use of an ESP-32-CAM and sending data to the main MCU

Solution

Here is our zip file, which contains our full mechanical assembly, LabVIEW components, and code: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cb2qyXRBzVdojx-ag-lN7o_9-5wtE0tL/view?usp=drive_link

Here is the link to our short (but important) demonstration of our project in the works:

One-Player Air Hockey Table Game