A Busy Board for Future Bond Villains?
You can use this DIY toy to play Whac-A-Mole and Simon-like games or even as a music sequencer.
Busy boards seem to be all the rage for toddlers these days. The basic concept is that you attach mechanical and/or electrical gadgets onto a board, allowing young ones to push, pull, rotate, and otherwise manipulate the objects to their little hearts’ content. And why not? With the advent of cheaply-available electronics and other gadgets, the entertainment possibilities are endless.
“wilksycom” decided to build one from scratch as a Christmas present for his kids. Controlled by an Arduino Mega clone, the box features two four-digit displays, a joystick, a set of toggle switches, a 4x4 button grid in the middle that looks like some sort of sequencer, a num pad on the right, and more. It has a pair of speakers and a polyphonic WAV player for audio feedback, and its black housing looks like a launch device that an outlandish movie villain might use.
You can see a demonstration of the build in the video below, including speaking a few numbers. It then progresses through a Back to the Future mode that may or may not be for dad. While certainly functional, wilksycom doesn’t think he’s really programmed this unit to its full potential, so you can chime in on its Reddit post if you want to put in your two cents!