Godot Machine Goes Freeform!
This piece of electronic art uses a solar panel and a joule thief to charge a bank of capacitors to generate random numbers.
Plays sometimes get turned into movies or other forms of media. In the case of the 1953 play Waiting for Godot however, where two characters wait for a third character named “Godot,” it instead inspired a functional art piece that we covered earlier.
This unit uses a solar panel and a joule thief to charge a bank of capacitors. Once powered, the Arduino generates a 20-bit true random number, which is shown on a 4-bit LED bar. The number is then compared to another random number, which was stored in EEPROM the first time the circuit booted. If equal, the machine stashes away this fact in EEPROM and a green LED and piezo buzzer are activated from here on out.
Given the numbers involved — just over a million possibilities — the process will take a long time, if it even happens at all. However, the chances of a so-called Godot Machine guessing the correct random number have now roughly quadrupled, thanks to a trio of freeform versions made by Redditor “GumGum9000.” A gallery of the new Godots is seen here as an ingenious freeform — i.e. without a PCB — circuit. The components are wrapped around a Nano, the capacitors serve as its base, and a solar panel is soldered at an angle to collect sunlight to power the random number generation.
Similar to the original version, when the solar panel sufficiently powers the capacitors enough, it produces a random number that's revealed on an array of four freeformed LEDs. It also chirps every once in a while to remind you that it’s around. If the machine ever hits the correct number, the fifth (green) LED shines and the beeper is triggered — as long as there's enough energy. Or so we assume, as proper testing would be nearly impossible.
These three builds are a beautiful take on the previous project, and it will be interesting to see which one guesses the correct number first!