Last spring monkeyworks engineers began scheming their next offering for the 2014 Nashville Mini Maker Faire. The ideas that emerged seemed ambitious. It had to be big, loud and excite the attendees, especially the kids. Turns out it was a Hit!
What it was was Wonky Pong.
An approximately 6′ 8″ square featuring a grid of 9 plastic panels. Each panel had a piezo sensor on the back as well as controllable LED lights. A large score panel was made and there was a separate sound panel that contained a buzzer like on a game show, a large bell and a siren. All of these were wired into an Arduino Mega controller.
To begin a game you threw a tennis ball at any panel. The scoreboard would count down from 5 and one of the panels would either light up green or red. Throw at the green. Don’t hit the red. You had so many seconds to hit the panel or it counted as a miss then the light would move to another panel. Each time a hit was made the bell would ring one ringy-dingy. If you missed the buzzer would sound. Three strikes and you were out. High score caused the siren to go off and the contestant received a small plush monkey.
With only two re-solders and one piezo replacement the game held up to a day long pounding with whole families pounding on it at once.
We were told by more than once person that it was the most popular thing there.
Thanks to everyone for their hard work!
