> I was told that I had the second biggest crowd, second only to a Pokémon bean bag game (which did look pretty cool). Some adults were curious, but most importantly, a handful of questions from kids who wanted to know how I built it. It was especially rewarding to show one off one of the extra targets I brought. One kid even recognized the ESP32 chips and said, “Oh, these are the ones you can make drones out of!”
That paragraph really stood out to me. Apparently, where OP lives, people casually make stuff even cooler than a laser shooting game for a one-off school event, and elementary-school-age kids recognize specific types of microcontrollers.
Nice work! I got into electronics with infrared remote decoding and ESP chips, so this was a bit nostalgic and fun to read :)
Making a PCB is the next step, and it's quite easy to get started with KiCAD, especially if you're just mounting header sockets to pop in the various boards you're using. Good luck!
Great timing. I've been wanting to learn how to do projects like this, but been so unsure what types of microcontroller I should get and what else could be needed. Similar in the software world where we all have our preferred tech stacks, I was so uncertain of what stack to use for these projects that it definitely causes a hurdle.
His mention of the ESP32 and how
>While working on the game I used my newfound ESP32 skills to do some other projects, such as automating the remote-controlled blinds in our bedroom as well as a motion sensor that would send Pushover notifications to my phone.
is absolutely what I'm wanting to be able to do. Learn the tech needed for one controller that can be used on tons of different places. That, plus that talk with MicroPython (and other parts) gives some confidence about learning this hardware stack.
I'd say you're on the right track, then! It's kind of like software — figure out how the components talk to each other and figure out where to hook in. Instead of APIs, you've got multimeters and oscilloscopes.
In the case of the blind automation, the remote uses some kind of proprietary wireless signal. Instead of figuring that out, I soldered some leads into the remote's momentary button terminals, which I connected to transistors on a breadboard. The ESP32 simply pretends to press a button and complete a connection on the remote.
Also check out ESPHome (https://esphome.io), a firmware for ESP32 that lets you more easily integrate with home automation systems.
Super impressive project, especially for what seems to be your first embedded project. I haven't played with microPython/uOTA so this was an interesting read.
Since you mentioned the water meter Flume, I wanted to shamelessly plug my open source water meter that I'm currently developing. It also uses the ESP32 so I thought you might be interested.
This might've been thrown out for being too obvious, but did you consider Ghostbusters? Swap the magic wand for a proton pack wand and it seems to fit almost too well.
We put Show HN in the title (the convention for sharing your own work on HN, which this certainly is! - https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html). But putting that in pushed MicroPython out the end of the buffer (which is fixed to 80 chars).
If MicroPython is more interesting than ESP32, we can swap them...
(Submitted title was "Imposter Attack – Among Us-themed infrared game made with ESP32 and MicroPython")
> I was told that I had the second biggest crowd, second only to a Pokémon bean bag game (which did look pretty cool). Some adults were curious, but most importantly, a handful of questions from kids who wanted to know how I built it. It was especially rewarding to show one off one of the extra targets I brought. One kid even recognized the ESP32 chips and said, “Oh, these are the ones you can make drones out of!”
That paragraph really stood out to me. Apparently, where OP lives, people casually make stuff even cooler than a laser shooting game for a one-off school event, and elementary-school-age kids recognize specific types of microcontrollers.
1 out of 115 kids recognizing a microcontroller doesn't seem that surprising considering many kids play with little electronics kits these days.
Plus kids follow makers on social media and video sites.
Part of me wants to say, "Well, that's Silicon Valley for you," but I'm confident there are many other places you could say something similar about.
Compared to what my neighbors are working on and with self-driving cars roaming around, infrared shooting games seem pretty mild :)
This took a few evenings to make :)
Full source code is on GitHub: https://github.com/statico/imposter-attack-2024
This is awesome! I may try to get this working locally with my 6 year old son!
Shoot me a message if you need any help!
Haha. I see what you did there
Nice work! I got into electronics with infrared remote decoding and ESP chips, so this was a bit nostalgic and fun to read :)
Making a PCB is the next step, and it's quite easy to get started with KiCAD, especially if you're just mounting header sockets to pop in the various boards you're using. Good luck!
Thanks! That's what I'm hoping. I'm already going down the YouTube hole of KiCAD...
Looks fun, and certainly worth a star. =3
Great timing. I've been wanting to learn how to do projects like this, but been so unsure what types of microcontroller I should get and what else could be needed. Similar in the software world where we all have our preferred tech stacks, I was so uncertain of what stack to use for these projects that it definitely causes a hurdle.
His mention of the ESP32 and how
>While working on the game I used my newfound ESP32 skills to do some other projects, such as automating the remote-controlled blinds in our bedroom as well as a motion sensor that would send Pushover notifications to my phone.
is absolutely what I'm wanting to be able to do. Learn the tech needed for one controller that can be used on tons of different places. That, plus that talk with MicroPython (and other parts) gives some confidence about learning this hardware stack.
I'd say you're on the right track, then! It's kind of like software — figure out how the components talk to each other and figure out where to hook in. Instead of APIs, you've got multimeters and oscilloscopes.
In the case of the blind automation, the remote uses some kind of proprietary wireless signal. Instead of figuring that out, I soldered some leads into the remote's momentary button terminals, which I connected to transistors on a breadboard. The ESP32 simply pretends to press a button and complete a connection on the remote.
Also check out ESPHome (https://esphome.io), a firmware for ESP32 that lets you more easily integrate with home automation systems.
Super impressive project, especially for what seems to be your first embedded project. I haven't played with microPython/uOTA so this was an interesting read.
Since you mentioned the water meter Flume, I wanted to shamelessly plug my open source water meter that I'm currently developing. It also uses the ESP32 so I thought you might be interested.
Main page. https://y-drip.com/
Docs: https://y-drip.com/docs/site/v0.4/
> I might try a different theme than Among Us
This might've been thrown out for being too obvious, but did you consider Ghostbusters? Swap the magic wand for a proton pack wand and it seems to fit almost too well.
Wow, I never considered a Ghostbusters theme. I'll keep that in mind for next year.
Liked the reference to uOTA - OTA updater for MicroPython
https://github.com/mkomon/uota
This might be one of the coolest maker projects I've seen. Congratulations!
Thanks!
Very, very cool-looking project!
It would be very cool to somehow make a laser tag variant, and build a persistent game and multiple players, StreetWars style.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151026121204/http://www.sfgate...
So cool and a great write up. Thanks for sharing!
Hard pass on Among Us. I heard it makes kids murder CEOs when they grow up[0].
[0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ironic-suspect-unitedhe...
Monopoly is the only game anyone should ever need.
And that only to learn why monopolies suck and that some regulations are actually useful. Also how real state can be unfair :)
I'm not sure if you're serious, but that guy was already 20 when the game came out.
I'm definitely not serious, it's a ridiculous take. The response to it on bluesky[0] is an entertaining read though.
[0]: https://bsky.app/profile/amongus.innersloth.com/post/3lcxvjk...
We put Show HN in the title (the convention for sharing your own work on HN, which this certainly is! - https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html). But putting that in pushed MicroPython out the end of the buffer (which is fixed to 80 chars).
If MicroPython is more interesting than ESP32, we can swap them...
(Submitted title was "Imposter Attack – Among Us-themed infrared game made with ESP32 and MicroPython")
Thanks, dang. It's been a while and I forgot the rules.