AVRphrase Design Files

I've gone through my design files for AVRphrase and cleaned them up a bit, and now I've got them posted on SourceForge.  The link is below, and it has everything you should need to replicate what I have done.  In this post, I'll try to walk through the different files that are included, along with other things you might need to know if you want to build your own game.

Design Files

http://sourceforge.net/projects/avrphrase/

Once you download the zip file (AVRphrase_v1.1_20110113.zip), you will find 7 subfolders inside it:

Eagle_Files
This folder contains the schematic and board file for AVRphrase.  I created these using the Freeware vsrion of CadSoft Eagle 5.6.0 (though I think the current version is 5.11.0).  I updated the files to fix the things I had to do by hand, and the schematic matches what I made (if you look closely at the schematic from my previous post, a few of the component values are slightly different than what I actually used).  I also included a BOM file that Eagle generates that lists the values/packages of all components.  This was useful to me when double checking that I ordered all of the right parts.  Most of the parts I used were in the default Eagle libraries, although some came from the Sparkfun Library, and others I made my own.  I'm not sure how Eagle works with the libraries....if I need to post the library I created for you to view the schematic/board files let me know and I will.

There are a few things to keep in mind if you want to have a pcb made from this design.  I made a small mistake when setting up my battery holder part in eagle, so the holes in the actual case are slightly offset from the holes in the battery holder.  I used a small zip tie to keep the holder in place and there was room to fit it, but if you wanted to use screws, you would need to fix the alignment.  I mentioned it in my previous post, but an improvement that would be easy to make would be to add a trace from the MCU to the reset pin of the USB-UART converter and reset it on power-on.  PD4 is open for this if you want to maintain compatibility with the DIP-28 version of the MCU, or you could move the buttons from ADC5 to one of the ADC pins only available in the surface mount package and free up another GPIO that way.  I didn't want silkscreen, so I turned that off.  To create the gerbers, you'll need to run the CAM processor  (there's plenty of tutorials online about how to do this).


BOM
I used the BOM from Eagle to make sure I had all of the parts I needed, but I've put together an Excel spreadsheet with part numbers and prices.  I ordered almost everything from Mouser, and I set up a Project Manager that had all of the parts needed for a single unit, and then ordered multiples of those.  If you'd like to go that route, let me know and I can send you a link to the project where you can purchase most of the components directly.  I would recommend ordering extras of most of the small stuff (resistors, caps, and diodes) because they're cheap, easy to lose, and nice to have around anyways.  For the ATmega48, you could get any MCU in that family (ATmega48, ATmega88, ATmega168, or ATmega328).  I pretty much maxed out the code space, so if you want to add any other features you'd probably want to opt for at least the ATmega88.  The 25AA512 EEPROM could also be scaled within the family, but that will require some software modifications to both the firmware and wordloader as addressing will be a little different.  You can find the datasheet for each of these components on the Mouser page linked from the BOM spreadsheet.

The only parts I didn't source from Mouser are the case, LCD (and LCD pin headers), and hardware (screws, nuts, zip ties).  I got the case from Polycase and my pcb is designed to mount on this case's mounting bosses.  I got the screws for the case from Polycase as well.  They have a Recessed or Flush option on the cases, but bear in mind that the surface they're talking about is the back of AVRphrase on my design, so it doesn't really matter.  I got my LCDs from Xenon-Tech, but you could find them a lot of places.  They're usually pretty cheap on ebay if you look there.  Just make sure that the pins are on the top left of the screen....I got one while testing where it was at the top right, and that won't work with the pcb.  The LCD footprint I'm using is from the Sparkfun library, so I'm sure theirs would work....they're just a little pricier.  I'm not using the backlight, so that isn't an important feature to look for (unless you want to add it).  You'll also need a row of 16 pin headers to connect the LCD to the pcb.  I got mine from Digikey because they had cheaper shipping for a smaller order, but you could easily find the same thing anywhere.  I used 4-40 screws to attach the LCD to the pcb before soldering, and these can be obtained at any hardware store.

Ordering enough for 10 of these, it made sense for me to look for better prices and pay extra to ship from a few different places.  You may want to see if you can find everything from one source.


Firmware
I have included the firmware that is on my copy of AVRphrase.  It's separated out into files that handle different functional pieces.  I went through and commented most of it.  I used AVR-GCC in AVR Studio with the AVR Dragon during development.  The fuse settings you'll need are listed at the top of main.c.  Everything is original (or based on a Datasheet/Application Note) except for the LCD code, which is using the open source LCD library found here.


AVRphrase_Wordloader
The wordloader was written using Processing 1.2.1 and relies on the Serial library to communicate with AVRphrase.  This program will go through the different serial ports and send a connect character.  AVRphrase will respond, and then it will select that port.  If you have other ports open and in use, it will fail.  I'm pretty sure there's a way to use a try--catch statement to handle that, but you could also hard code it to the port you want.  This was intended to be used by people who wouldn't have any idea what port they needed to use or how to change it.  The wordloader handles some basic user errors, but I still find things going wrong sometimes.  It worked consistently on my computer, but I had to slow down the baud rate considerably (19200 to 4800) to yield consistent performance on the other computers.  I've tested it on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, and it works fine on all three now.  The Processing sketch is cross platform, but the USB drivers are what's killing Mac.  Linux works fine as well, you just have to do a little more configuration (described at the MCP2200 product page Linux readme).  This code is much less heavily commented than the firmware.  It will take a few minutes for the upload to complete.

Cad
Polycase was kind enough to provide me with CAD files for the cases I purchased.  I used AutoCAD WS to edit one and add the holes for buttons and LCD.  It's a pain to use, but I didn't have access to anything better.  I used Free DWG Viewer to print a 1:1 scale copy of this, and then taped it to the top of my case.  I cut out the cases with a Dremel tool.  You'll also need a small hole on the side for the USB connector.


User_Manual
The user manual is written from a non-technical perspective and is intended to show the end user how to play the game and how to go about loading new word lists.


Pictures
I have included some pictures of AVRphrase that you can use for reference if you want to build your own.

Configuration and Programming

Once you have assembled your AVRphrase, you will need to go through a few steps before it is ready to play.  The first is to program the Fuse bits on the microcontroller, and then program the firmware onto the microcontroller.  When you connect AVRphrase to your computer, you will need to install the USB Driver and use the Configuration Utility (found on the same page) to set the baud rate to 4800 and enable Tx/Rx LEDs.  Once this is complete, you can use the wordloader to upload a wordlist, and then your AVRphrase is ready to play.

You can contact me by commenting here or emailing me at zjonesengineering@gmail.com if you have questions, but the level of support I can provide is minimal.

AVRphrase

When I started playing around with embedded systems, I wanted to do something more interesting than just flashing an LED, and I spent a lot of time trying to come up with project ideas that would be useful (or at least fun) when they were done. One of the first ideas I had was to make my own version of catchphrase. Most of my extended family enjoys the game, but one problem with it is that some of the younger nephews can't understand most of the words. I thought it would be fun to create a version that they could play, and then the project grew from there.

 I made the first version right after getting an Arduino for Christmas 2009, so it was a fun project to get familiar with the Arduino and pretty easy to get up and running with the libraries and examples on the web. I spent about a week of evenings playing around before I got something I was happy with.  My first version was really simple, with all of the words stored in the AVR's flash using PROGMEM (I was able to fit around 700 words in 5 categories--any more words would give me problems, even though the flash wasn't even close to full). The problem with this was that the way I input the words was very, very tedious and was not something I could see any of my relatives understanding if I wanted to give it to them as something they could customize in the future.  The prototype was basically a 16x2 LCD, 5 push buttons, an ATmega328 mcu, a 16 MHz crystal, a piezo buzzer, and a 5V linear regulator.  I used a socket for the microcontroller so that I could pull it out and place it in my Arduino to program it.  I soldered it together on a protoboard, but didn't have a good enclosure or any power management.  It ran off of a 9V battery, and to turn it off you had to unplug the battery.  It was fun to work on, and a good proof-of-concept, but I got sidetracked for a while after I finished it.

I started thinking that it would be a fun project to take further.....maybe get a pcb printed and make enough to give as Christmas presents next year. Then I saw a post on Hackaday of someone who had done a similar project, but with a price tag over $200.  That was one of the things that made me decide I could definitely put this together, and for way less.  Christmas 2010 was the goal.  As I started thinking it through, I came up with more features that I could add, and other ways it could be used. The original used a 16x2 LCD display, and I would probably keep that on the next one. I also think the layout of a 5 pushbutton interface works well.  I had two buttons for keeping score, one for changing categories, one for starting/stopping the game, and one to advance to the next word.  It's a little different than the real Catchphrase, but the interface seems a little cleaner to me.  I definitely needed to add an on/off capability, as the last version was always on when the battery was connected. I also wanted  it to run off of a couple of AA batteries instead of a 9V.  The major change that I wanted to make was to remove the wordlist from the flash memory of the micro. By using an external EEPROM chip (SPI or I2C),  I could store the wordlist there and have a minimal code footprint on the micro. I could also add a mode where you could connect the microcontroller to a computer and use it as a UART to SPI bridge to program the wordlist into the EEPROM.  I needed USB capability if I wanted anyone else to be able to upload new word lists, as well as a simple way to upload new words.  With these ideas in mind, I set out to begin my design.

I decided right away that I wanted to move away from the Arduino development environment and switch to straight avr-gcc if I stuck with an AVR, or potentially use this as an opportunity to gain experience with another micro like PIC or MSP430.  The requirements I initially laid out for the microcontroller are listed below:

• SPI/I2C - For interfacing with external EEPROM
• UART/USB - For connecting to computer to program EEPROM
• 5 GPIOs - Buttons
• 7-11 GPIOs - LCD, Piezo buzzer 
• 4-8 kB program space (rough estimate)

The list is pretty basic, and I knew that the ATmegaXX8 series would be up to the task and I already had a simple AVR ISP programmer, although at school I had access to a Dragon as well. I had a few PICs with built in USB that met the requirements, but I would be leaving college in a few months and thereby losing access to a PIC programmer. I also have a TI ez430 kit,  but I'm not sure that the series of 430 that comes with that kit would have worked.  In the end, I decided to stick with an AVR because of familiarity and the tools I already had, but I plan on using a different family of micro on my next project to try and expand my capabilities.  I had ATmega48, ATmega168, and ATmega328 chips in DIP packages, which were perfect for prototyping, and I could figure out how much code space I actually needed before actually selecting a chip because of the simplicity of switching between them.  I programmed the chips in AVR-GCC within AVR Studio.  I got pretty used to using the debugWire feature of the Dragon on school projects, and ended up picking one up after I graduated, which was very helpful for this project.

I had a pretty good idea in my head of what I wanted to do, so I started breadboarding another prototype.  I worked slowly and tried to get each functional piece working and simple "driver/interface" code written before moving on.  I pretty much always had the freeware CadSoft Eagle schematic editor up while I was working and kept the schematic consistent with what I had breadboarded.  The schematic definitely evolved as I went, but you can see the final version below.

At the top left of the schematic is the power regulator.  It's an MCP1259 inductorless charge pump DC-DC converter from Microchip that provides a regulated 3.3V from a 1.8-3.6V supply.  My V+ is coming from 2 AA batteries, and this chip also has a bypass feature that I'm using when I enter the power down state.  I used this chip, along with a couple others from Microchip because I was able to obtain some samples of them to test as a student and they worked well for my application. At the top middle is the LCD, which is a standard 16x2 character LCD.  I was able to find these pretty cheaply from  Xenon-Tech.  The LCD needs 5V power, so I stepped up the 3.3v using a voltage quadrupler and a 5.1V zener diode (see lower left of schematic) as described in this application note.  At the top right is an MCP2200 USB-UART converter, which is used to communicate with a PC to upload a new word list.  I used this instead of an FTDI232 chip because it was about half the price (although it did require an external 12 MHz crystal), but it doesn't work on Mac (or at least didn't at the time I was working with it), which is a downside.  At the bottom right is a chain of buttons configured as a voltage divider and connected to an ADC pin on the microcontroller.  This allowed me to use only one pin to read all 5 buttons, and I handled the debouncing in software.  At the bottom is the EEPROM chip.  I'm using a 25AA512 SPI EEPROM, which has 512Kbit and 1,000,000 erase/write cycles.  This series of memory chips goes all the way from 1Kbit to 1Mbit, and I'm using this one because it was a good balance of cost and storage.  Because my LCD is a 16 character display, I store each word/phrase as 16 characters regardless of the actual size, which simplified addressing and knowing where the words would be stored in memory, and allowed me to have ~4000 words/phrases.  I think the actual Hasbro Catcphrase has ~10,000 phrases, but 4000 is plenty for my homemade version, and it would be a simple change to move to the larger chip if I needed to.  I had a piezo buzzer and programming header, but pretty much everything else on the schematic is just supporting components.

I wanted my final design to be surface mount, and some of the chips I selected were only available in surface mount packages, so I had to use breakout boards for those in my prototype.  I got the breakout boards from Sparkfun and Proto-Advantage, and they were perfect for what I needed.  I kept my breadboarded prototype up to date even after I moved on to the PCB and was making minor adjustments there, just so I would always have an easy to modify prototype.  You can see the breadboarded version below.

Once I had the hardware finalized (or at least I thought it was finalized) and test code written for each portion, I decided it would be best to lay out a pcb and get the actual hardware in hand, as that was the longest lead time item, and I could worry about finalizing the software later.  I used Eagle to lay out the pcb, and had them fabricated through Gold Phoenix PCB using their 2 layer 155 sq. in. panel service, which I was very pleased with.  The physical constraints on my board came from the case I'd selected, and I was able to fit 15 boards on their panel.  The holes in the four corners are used to mount the board to the case.

Even though I had 15 pcb's, I hadn't really planned on making that many.  I bought enough components to populate 10 of them (10 was the cut-off for a price break on a lot of the components), thinking I'd make some mistakes and have 8 or 9 in the end (I ended up with 9 working units, and the one that's broken just needs an new MCP2200 chip and then it's good to go).  The "bottom side" of the pcb is actually the top of the game, but only has the screen and 5 buttons, which were all through-hole components.

The top of the pcb (bottom of the game) is where everything else is.  There were a couple of mistakes on the board, but I was able to fix them by hand.  At the bottom left is a pull-up resistor that was accidentally inline with the voltage divider-to-ADC path.  Luckily, it was over a 3.3v pour, and I was able to scrape away a small patch of solder mask and make a new "pad" for the resistor and jumper the old pad with solder.  The other mistake came from not reading the datasheet for my USB-UART converter closely enough.  It has a pin called Vusb, which I thought needed to be connected to the 5V USB pin.  It actually has it's own internal regulator, and I just needed a capacitor there.  I was able to cut the trace and add the capacitor after the fact.  Another mistake I didn't fix was that I forgot to connect a GPIO from the mcu to the reset pin on the USB-UART converter.  This is a pain, because sometimes the chip gets messed up and needs to be reset, but I have to do that by disconnecting the batteries rather than in software.  Otherwise, I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Once I had the hardware complete, I moved on to finishing the software.  I'd written most of the functions I needed already, I just had to write my main routine and make any fixes that came up.  When the mcu initializes, it checks the first page of EEPROM, which lets it know how many categories there are, and then reads in the name and starting/stopping memory locations for that category.  It only stores this information for the current category, and has to go back and read out the information for the next category when you change categories.  I have a few timers running, but the main process occurs once every 50 ms.  This is where button presses are registered and actions are taken.  The duration of the game round is randomly selected to be between 45 and 75 seconds at the beginning of each round.  Random words are selected by taking the value of a 16 bit timer at the time of the button press modulus by the size of the current category.  The timer gets progressively faster as the round goes on, and lets out a long beep to signal the end of the round.  In between rounds, the players can add points to either team, and the game will announce when a team has won.  After three minutes without any button presses, the game enters a power-down sleep mode and sets up a pin change interrupt on the ADC pin connected to the buttons.  Pressing any of the buttons (except for team 2 score) will wake up the device and re-initialize everything.  I ended up using the ATmega48, and when I was done it was 99.7% full on program space, which limited me from implementing a few other features I'd thought up later, but I still got the basic functionality in there.

The PC software to load words is written in Processing.  I tried to make it as simple as possible so that the user just has to click "play" and everything works once their lists are set up.  I have a data folder set up where the user adds all of their category names to a file called "CategoryNames.txt".  They then have to create a text file with the same name and fill it with their word list.  The processing sketch would run on Windows, Linux, or Mac, but the USB-UART chip doesn't support Mac, and I'm the only one I know who uses Linux, so I just gave everyone directions for Windows.  There's some simple error checking that takes care of common problems, but I fully expect to have to do some more troubleshooting once others start using it.  I gave everyone a CD with a user manual, USB drivers, sample word lists, and the wordloader program, so they should have everything they need to customize their AVRphrase.  The default category list was ~2800 words, which left them with plenty of room to add more, and they can always remove the defaults.

I cut the cases using a Dremel drill press, and they're pretty rough, but they work.  The last few I did definitely look better than the first couple.

The game plays pretty much exactly the same as the original Catchphrase, and is a lot of fun for groups of 4-10 people.  The fact that you can create custom categories also adds another fun element (my nephews love the Star Wars category).  I also think it has value as an educational tool, and could be marketed to teachers as something they could put their vocabulary words on and have students play for a fun learning/review game.  Below you can see a brief video of how the game works.  The end product ended up costing ~$30 each.  There are a few things I would have done differently if I were to do this again, but I had a lot of fun with the project and was able to get it finished up by Christmas Eve.