mechie
New Member
I remember building something like this years ago and spending hours figuring out how it worked!
The game can be constructed in a small plastic sandwich box. A straight row of twenty one setscrews, nuts and bolts or some other terminal strip is arranged on the lid, along with a pushbutton (push-to-test, NOT latching) and the five lampholders. All the wiring can be looped point-to-point, with the battery inside the box and a flying lead with a small crocodile clip on the end. Alternatively, a strip of wood could be used with a row of 18 nails for the terminals.
Any sort of bulb or LED can be used for the indicators, the battery obviously needs to be the same voltage as the bulbs.
I have colour-coded the wiring purely to make it easier to follow. The best impression is made when the wiring is hidden or made too tangled to follow thus preventing your mates tracing out how it works.
The game is played as follows:-
Imagine a series of stepping stones across a river. There are two of you taking turns to shout numbers to a frog (?) who then jumps that number of stones. The frog can jump a maximum of four stones at a time. You must force your opponent (the computer) to take the last move onto the last stone (the one with no wire to it).
Place the flying lead on the first terminal, flip a coin to see who goes first.
For your go; choose a number from one to four and move the flying lead by that number.
For the computer's go; press the button, see which lamp illuminates - "one" to "four" - and move the flying lead by that number for the computer.
You could use a pile of 20 counters (NOTE twenty - NOT twenty one as in the electronic stepping stones!), playing against a friend to see how the game works before building the electric version. If you pick up the last counter - you lose!
Who says computers are complicated ?
The game can be constructed in a small plastic sandwich box. A straight row of twenty one setscrews, nuts and bolts or some other terminal strip is arranged on the lid, along with a pushbutton (push-to-test, NOT latching) and the five lampholders. All the wiring can be looped point-to-point, with the battery inside the box and a flying lead with a small crocodile clip on the end. Alternatively, a strip of wood could be used with a row of 18 nails for the terminals.
Any sort of bulb or LED can be used for the indicators, the battery obviously needs to be the same voltage as the bulbs.
I have colour-coded the wiring purely to make it easier to follow. The best impression is made when the wiring is hidden or made too tangled to follow thus preventing your mates tracing out how it works.
The game is played as follows:-
Imagine a series of stepping stones across a river. There are two of you taking turns to shout numbers to a frog (?) who then jumps that number of stones. The frog can jump a maximum of four stones at a time. You must force your opponent (the computer) to take the last move onto the last stone (the one with no wire to it).
Place the flying lead on the first terminal, flip a coin to see who goes first.
For your go; choose a number from one to four and move the flying lead by that number.
For the computer's go; press the button, see which lamp illuminates - "one" to "four" - and move the flying lead by that number for the computer.
You could use a pile of 20 counters (NOTE twenty - NOT twenty one as in the electronic stepping stones!), playing against a friend to see how the game works before building the electric version. If you pick up the last counter - you lose!
Who says computers are complicated ?