This week, we focused on refining the physical layout of the board and integrating all the pieces of the board.
1. Dice tray plate
We laser-cut multiple versions of the dice roll plate to test wall height (short vs. tall walls, and outward-tapered walls). After testing with actual dice, we decided to use tall, straight walls since they keep the dice contained better and look cleaner when integrated into the board.
2. Revised house vs. city indicator design
We changed how we represent houses vs. cities on each tile. To make our game board look cleaner and symmetric, we decided to have three LEDs at each corner. We will light up one for a house and all three for a city. This also works better with the LED strip spacing, as it is easier to route and gives a clearer visual distinction for the player.
3. Base board laser cutting
Our biggest accomplishment this week was finalizing the design we would laser cut for the baseboard. It took multiple iterations to get the dimensions for the cutout for each LED correct so that the wiring is hidden underneath. We are now ready to restructure the individually addressable LEDs to match this layout.
4. Switch matrix wiring
We also finished wiring and soldering the switch matrix. However, during continuity testing, we found intermittent connectivity issues on some rows/columns. The pinouts for the push buttons are very weak, so a few of them broke during soldering. We fixed those and then fortified the connections with electrical tape. Unfortunately, we think there were more issues with the soldering and maintaining connectivity. Rather than continuing to work with the small weak buttons, we decided to just order bigger and sturdier buttons. We also plan to laser cut a dedicated base plate with holes for each button so they are constrained, and hopefully, the solder joints don’t break.
Plan for next week:
- Rebuild the switch matrix with the new buttons.
- Laser-cut the switch base board to mechanically support the matrix.
- Restructure the LED strip to match the board
- Integrating LEDs + switches (so a button press leads to an LED lighting up)
