“‘Gusli-samogudy’ means self playing gusli,” Morozov explained. “It’s very common charter is old Russian fairy tales – so by making it robotized I made [the] fairy tale come true.”
Programmed by Alexey Pajitnov, the game was released on June 6, 1984 while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow.
According to Wikipedia, the wildly popular Tetris derived its name from the Greek numerical prefix tetra (all of the game’s pieces contain four segments) and tennis, Pajitnov’s favorite sport.
Image Credit: Wikipedia
The game (or one of its many variants) is available for nearly every video game console and computer operating system, as well as on devices such as graphing calculators, mobile phones, portable media players and PDAs.
The game – which surfaced on Instructables earlier this week – is built around two of jolliFactory’s bi-color LED Matrix Driver Module, a platform that allows Makers to easily daisy-chain multiple components.
“Just for fun, we thought we could build a simple Tetris game by daisy-chaining two of the bi-color LED Matrix Driver modules together driven by an Arduino Nano (Atmel ATmega328 MCU) simply by adapting similar projects found at Instructables… We expanded our search to other online sites and managed to find some information which we adapted to build a simple Arduino based bi-color LED matrix Tetris game,” a jolliFactory rep explained.
“As this project is simply built for the FUN factor with no intention of using it for long, we did not pay too much attention to build a proper enclosure. However, the enclosure should enable the player to hand-held the gadget to play quite comfortably. What we have for the enclosure is a cardboard box backing with a blue tinted acrylic protective front with the game control push button switches mounted.”
Dmitry Morozov describes his ‘Signes de vie’ (‘Signs of Life’) project as a light model of a simple cell colony built on the principles of one-dimensional cellular automaton. Interestingly, the unique light and sound mechanism is based on an old fax machine.
“A fluorescent dye is applied on special fax paper, [while the] thermal printing element is replaced by a row of 10 LEDs,” the Moscow-based artist explained. “As it goes through a step-by-step under the row of diodes, it leaves on a paper a glowing trace from short flashes: a row that corresponds to one generation of cellular automaton. Gradually, each of the rows fade and is being replaced by a new one, but the glowing time is enough to see the whole pattern of the colony.”
Thus, says Morozov, the paper becomes a kind of a chronicle of the colony’s life.
“One of the 256 algorithms (rules – more info) of the simplest one-dimensional cellular automation can be used. Those are selected by a switch,” he continued. “Additionally, there is a speed switch that selects appearance time-frame of each new generation in the range of 1 to 18 seconds.”
In addition to the above-mentioned fax machine, the project also features an Arduino Uno (Atmel ATmega328) and a small speaker through which an algorithmic composition is played – with pitch and spacing of repetitions directly dependent on the conditions of the selected rule.
Atmel | Bits & Pieces 