Bag toss sensory circuit

Thread Starter

hermanjc

Joined Nov 13, 2011
4
I am interested in something fairly similar (and am also fairly novice when it comes to circuitry (mechanical engineer by trade))

I build a few sets of cornhole games every year (just in case you are unaware cornhole is basically adult bean bag toss). I would like to come up with a system where when a player's bag goes through the hole in the board there is a sound clip played.

For example, right now I am building a duck hunt themed set, so I would like a random clip or even just one clip to play every time a bag goes through the score hole. I have a infrared beam trigger in mind, but also I need it to recognize if the beam stays broken, i.e. the bag doesn't actually fall all the way through the hole, but is hanging on top of the board with enough hanging into the hole to break the beam. In this case I don't want the clip to play on loop.

The only other detail I can really think off is that I would hope the whole system to be run off a 9V battery, or maybe 4 AA's (6V).

Any thoughts? I completely understand if this is too much of an effort to ask someone else to make.
 

elec_mech

Joined Nov 12, 2008
1,500
hermanjc,

Infrared would work well. If you're interested in the 7-segment display, I'll need more info about the game, i.e., how scoring works, total number of points possible, etc. 7-segment LED displays do not lend themselves well to battery power as they tend to consume a relatively high amount of current. If you could get away with an LCD 7-segment display, then no problem.

If you just want the sound and no display, battery power will work.

As far as making the sound, the ideal way is to use a microcontroller with an MP3 decoder. That would entail some work. If money isn't too tight, I think we can do this with discrete logic ICs (no programming) and an MP3 player such as this: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9715. As I understand it, you can control up to 18 different sounds, music, etc. using this without a microcontroller.

Let me know what you think and more about your game - we may need to move this to its own thread, we don't want to hijack this one as it is has different requirements.

zzz_tired,

Today's been crazy busy at work, so I'll try to post a simple schematic tomorrow. If you have time to answer the questions in my last post it would really help.
 

Thread Starter

hermanjc

Joined Nov 13, 2011
4
Thanks elec_mech for the response!

I have no interest in adding a 7 segment score keeper, and sorry about hijacking that other thread.

Also, I really have no need for something quite as robust and costly as that MP3 Trigger, and if this is gonna be a lot of work using a micro controller system, then perhaps this is just a little out of my league and reasonable price for the return. But any help you can provide otherwise is great.

I appreciate any effort you can donate to this, but as I said, I am really interested in as a cost option as possible (I will need 2 of these setups per bag toss set).
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I don't have ideas for playing the sound, but I think you could build a "trigger" around the opening of a touch switch, or the beam reappearing after being blocked by the passing bag. You don't want to trigger on closing the switch or blocking the beam, since that could just be a hanging bag, as you noted.

Oh, you know they do make cheap bullhorn things that will play a range of noises when you hit a button. That might provide a cheap way to add fun sounds to your corn hole game. So you just need to figure out how to trigger the noisemaker with the switch or beam. Shouldn't be too tough but it's not my area.
 

Thread Starter

hermanjc

Joined Nov 13, 2011
4
I have looked into a "motion alarm" and found this item on Deal Extreme: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/digita...vated-visitor-welcoming-door-chime-frog-16446

It seems like the ideal solution since it will allow me to record my own message/sound, although I will need to take it apart and repackage it probably in a radio shack box.

However, the sensor is based on light changes, which would be a problem. Do you think I could change it to be triggered by a broken IR beam? I know this is tough to answer without seeing its guts.
 

elec_mech

Joined Nov 12, 2008
1,500
Hmm, that could work, but there would be some work to figure out how to get the input signals to work - shouldn't be too diificult though.

If you're looking at a single recordable sound or using multiple cheap recorders to go off in sequence (now we're talking) or a different recorder for each sensor, perhaps you could look at recordable greeting cards:

http://hallmark.com/online/in-stores/greeting-cards/recordable-cards.aspx

I know you can pick up the modules by themselves, hopefully for less and I did so a few years ago - I'll see if I can dig up the site I found.
 

Thread Starter

hermanjc

Joined Nov 13, 2011
4
Thanks for looking into that. Although the recordable greeting cards are a good and small package, I think i like that toad things just because I wont need to modify the batteries (I'd prefer a larger battery source), not to mention the price is a deal.

I think I'm going to order a few of them to mess around with, but Deal Extreme free shipping can take up to 3 weeks (China air mail), so until I get it gutted and can get you some pictures any other thoughts you have are always welcome. I guess I should probably order some IR emitters and receivers too at some point, any suggestions?
 

elec_mech

Joined Nov 12, 2008
1,500
I believe an infrared LED and phototransistor is the way to go, but someone with more experience in this arena may offer better advice. As a quick reference:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049723 - not the best reviews, so who knows?

Or buy them separate (probably better, I think these have more power and can cover a better distance): http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049724 and http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062565.

You can of course pick something else up online cheaper. I mention these because you can get them locally (if you're in the U.S.) and start playing with them now to see how they work and at what distances.

Also add a piece of heat shrink tubing around the sides of both of them to prevent interference from outside sources and possibly to increase the intensity of the beam.
 

wirednuts

Joined Nov 13, 2011
20
to remedy the bag hanging half in the hole problem, i would set the trigger to only go off if the sensor is broken for less then 200ms or so. if the IR beam is broken for longer then 200ms, then nothing happens. if the IR beam is broken and re-initiated within 200ms, then the score changes and the sound plays.
 
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