Chapter 6. Building a Motion-Sensing Game Controller • 110

•It’s a lot of fun to create a marble maze computer game and control it using the game controller we built in this chapter. How much more fun will it be to build a real marble maze?3

•In this chapter, we have measured only direct acceleration; that is, we usually have the accelerometer in our hand and move it. But you can also build many interesting projects that measure indirect acceleration, such as when you are driving a car.4

What If It Doesn’t Work?

All advice from What If It Doesn’t Work?, on page 97, also applies to the project in this section. In addition, you should check whether you’ve soldered the pin header correctly to the breakout board. Use a magnifying glass and study every single solder joint carefully. Did you use enough solder? Did you use too much and connect two joints?

Exercises

•To get a better feeling for the data the accelerometer emits, you should write a few more sketches that focus on a particular axis. Write a sketch that outputs only the current value for the X-axis, for example. Turn an LED on when the X-axis value is above a predefined threshold value. Otherwise, turn it off.

3.http://www.electronicsinfoline.com/New/Everything_Else/marble-maze-that-is-remote-controlled-using-an- accelerometer.html

4.http://www.dimensionengineering.com/appnotes/Gmeter/Gmeter.htm

report erratum • discuss