…quite possible the most complex thing I’ve ever built.

As part of the “Great Create” I was challenged by my buddies at Make magazine to complete a set of projects only using parts from Radio Shack.

For my first project they tasked me with reproducing the rather excellent 555-timer “Whack-a-Mole” game created by Jim Chen.

This one was tough… oh yes… very tough.

Eventually I had to abandon the idea of reproducing it on a breadboard like Jim – it soon became clear that it was going to be impossible to convey to anyone else how to do it, so I needed to try another approach.

I decided to recreate the design as a double-sided PCB – etched at home using a couple of single sided boards and some Ferric Chloride.

This worked out, but Radio Shack had one trick left up its sleeve – the PNP transistors that came in the multipack were *backwards* to the standard PNP footprint. Of course, I only realised it *after* I’d added them to the board.

(sigh)

But after I fixed that it worked! Yay!

…and here’s a video to prove it:

If you’re up to the challenge – the full instructions are over on MAKE : Projects –

click here to be teleported there right now

More projects to come…

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Tagged as: Great Create, MAKE, Radio Shack

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Aaron August 25, 2011 at 7:13 am: Hitting autoroute in Eagle is hardly a complex thing. I think you may be underachieving here a bit.
Stephen Hobley August 25, 2011 at 7:22 am: You’re quite right, I think autorouting took about 37 seconds.

– but etching, aligning and bonding two planes using toner transfer, assembling the board by hand (soldering each wire on both sides) and ripping up a bunch of misplaced transistors – damaging and repairing tracks in the process – *is* the most complex thing that I’ve done.

I could of course just send it to an overseas fab house – but where’s the pleasure in that?
Mohamed September 10, 2011 at 10:49 am: amazing !!!