From the Forums: Reaction Game for Circuit Playground Express | #circuitpython #adabox

Inspired by Simple Simon, AdaBox subscriber Ron wrote on the forums about this simple and fun Reaction Game for the Circuit Playground Express!

Adabox006 delivered my first CPx. I recently purchased the Feather M0 Express but hadn’t even put headers on it yet so the CPx was my first real chance to play with it and Circuit Python. I pretty quickly had the idea to use the 10 neopixels to create a game that tested reaction time and it was quite simple to do. Below I will described what I used, link to a video of the game in action, as well as link to the readme and code.py on Github.

The BOM is trivial as it only requires the CPx and a power source. You can power it from a USB cable but that’s not very convenient since you need to hold it in your hand and react quickly. I power mine with a small lipo battery I attached to the back of the CPx using Scotch double-sided tape but it can also be powered using the AAA holder that came with Adabox006.

  • The neopixels will cycle counter clockwise. All will be blue except one which will be red which is the player’s target
  • The object of the game is to touch the pad A7 right when the one LED changes to red (random for each game)
  • When first started the neopixels will all flash blue except for #1 being RED indicating the initial difficulty setting of 1 (easiest)
  • Press push button B to start the game. It will turn off all of the neopixels for 1 second so you can prepare then begin cycling until you touch A7
  • If you get it right a little victory tone set is played and all the neopixels turn GREEN
  • If you miss then there is a sadder tone and the neopixels go RED
  • You can hit push button B to play again
  • If you want to increase the difficulty press push button A. Difficulty is 1 to 5 and the number of RED neopixels shows the current difficulty setting
  • Difficulty 5 has the game run as fast as it can

Read more here and check out the code repository here on GitHub.