Video: Cuboro goes digital with an ATtiny85

Cuboino can probably best be described as a tangible, digital extension of the classic marble puzzle game Cuboro. Designed by Felix Heibeck of the University of Bremen, Cuboino is powered by Atmel’s versatile ATtiny85 MCU.

“Cuboino consists of a set of cubes that are seamlessly compatible with the Cuboro cubes. In contrast to the passive Cuboro cubes, Cuboino modules are active parts of a digital system consisting of sensor cubes, actor cubes and supply cubes,” Heibeck explained.

“By snapping them together, players can build a modular system that functions according to the individual functionalities of the Cuboino cubes. Cuboino establishes a new pathway that is not embodied in the marble, but adapts to the medium of its transmission. Signals can be received by multiple modules, creating more than one signal at a time. This allows signals to intertwine, thus creating more dynamic and complex outcomes.”

As previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel’s high-performance, low-power sipping 8-bit AVR RISC-based ATtiny85 MCU boasts 8KB ISP flash memory, 512B EEPROM, 512-Byte SRAM, 6 general purpose I/O lines, 32 general purpose working registers, one 8-bit timer/counter with compare modes, one 8-bit high speed timer/counter, USI, internal and external Interrupts.

The ATtiny85 microcontroller also feature a four-channel 10-bit A/D converter, programmable watchdog timer with internal oscillator, three software selectable power saving modes and debugWIRE for on-chip debugging. The device achieves a throughput of 20 MIPS at 20 MHz and operates between 2.7-5.5 volts. By executing powerful instructions in a single clock cycle, the device achieves throughputs approaching 1 MIPS per MHz – neatly balancing power consumption with processing speed.

Interested in learning more about Cuboino? You can check out Heibeck’s project/thesis page here. You can also read more about Atmel’s extensive tinyAVR lineup here.