The childhood traditional tabletop recreation of Join 4 entails dropping both a crimson or yellow disc into one in every of a number of columns in a grid with the hope of lining up 4 in a row. And regardless that the sport has existed digitally for some time now, it’s principally performed on LCD screens with fancier graphics and AIs towards which the participant competes. Eager to push this paradigm additional, Mirko Pavleski constructed a mini tabletop arcade cupboard that makes use of an Arduino Nano and an LED matrix as an alternative to run the sport.

As a way to show the present grid to the participant(s), Pavleski bought an 8×8 WS2812B individually addressable LED matrix that will get powered by the Arduino Nano‘s 5V regulator. As a result of the sport can both be performed towards one other human or an AI opponent, the cupboard accommodates three buttons for choosing the chip’s drop location and a buzzer to ship audible suggestions when an occasion happens. Your entire machine was constructed from just a few 5mm PVC boards lined with coloured paper for an old style aesthetic.

Watching the microcontroller AI opponent play Join 4 in real-time is kind of spectacular, owing to the comparatively small computing assets of the Arduino Nano’s ATmega328 MCU. To see it in motion, you’ll be able to watch Pavleski’s video beneath or try his venture write-up on Hackster.io.