Super Mario Brothers George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering ME 2110 - Creative Decisions and Design Time: 5:00pm, Friday, April 4, 2014 MaRC Building Atrium (Hopefully) I. INTRODUCTION Super Mario Brothers is the most successful video game series ever. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games. A major problem with video games is that they are almost entirely devoid of physical motion and forces. Due to lack of interaction with the real world, long-term vidiots tend to suffer from muscular atrophy, mental illness, and bad hygiene. These effects will greatly increase the taxes that you pay for the health care of these unfortunates as they become more and more decrepit. In order to address the need to reintroduce these lost souls into human society and improve their health, we will develop a physical version of Super Mario Brothers. Your design task is to design a machine to play in a Super Mario Brothers game along with 3 other machines. Your machine will be Gold! Starting tested in the arcade shown by the overhead Coins Area Home ! view in Figure 1. Each machine will be as- signed one of the 4 starting areas. The space Princess! Zone directly in front of a machine is that ma- Peach chine's home zone. The machine will have 40 seconds to perform the following five tasks: 1) Push Away Donkey Kong and Bowser. Donkey Kong is a serious an- noyance given his propensity to hurl bar- rels at you. Bowser is always trying to steal Princess Peach. Each zone will start with a Donkey Kong and Bowser standing menac- Donkey! ingly in the middle. You must push Donkey Kong Kong and Bowser out of your zone. For each Donkey Kong or Bowser that ends up com- pletely in your zone, you will be penalized Bowser Star! -8 pts. Any of these troublemakers that are Green! Switch partially in your zone will incur a penalty of Tube -3 pts. 2) Collect Coins. Along the edge of each zone will be gold coins. For each coin Fig 1. SuperMario Arcade. that your machine can collect completely into your zone, you will be awarded 5 pts. (There will be a total of 16 coins in the arcade.) 3) Rescue Princess Peach. At the center of the arcade, on an elevated platform, Princess Peach is waiting for you to rescue her. If you move her completely into your home zone, then you will score 30 pts. 4) Collect a Shining Star. Each zone has a StarPrincess Switch! located near the center of the arcade. The machine that is the first to collect the star by pushing theirPeach Star Switch will be awarded 20 pts. 5) Send Mario and Luigi to the Next Level Down the Green Tube. Each team will be given Mario and Luigi dolls. Your machine must send them down the green tube at the center ofDown the arcade. the! For each one that you advance, you will earn 13 pts. Green Tube Side View of Arcade Center ME2110 - Creative Decisions and Design The devices you develop for this project will be tested on five occasions: 1) Individual Preliminary Round (Week of Feb. 24) Every student will construct his or her own device for pushing Donkey Kong and Bowser. The device will not be computer controlled. The only energy sources that can be used are gravity and 3 mousetraps. You will trigger the action of your machine using one manual motion, but you cannot transfer any significant energy to the machine during the triggering process. Your device will compete by itself in the arcade with only Donkey Kong and Bowser in your zone. You will have 5 minutes to run your machine at most three times. Your score will be the sum total of your three attempts. One percent of your course grade comes from this test. 2) Individual Final Round (Week of March 3) During this week, your individual machine will both push Donkey Kong and Bowser and collect coins. The machine must be computer controlled and triggered by the arcade start button. You cannot manually start its motion. Your device can use energy from gravity, 3 mousetraps, and the pneumatic pressure vessel. You will need to coordinate testing with your team to share the computer controller and pneumatic supplies that were issued to your team. Your device will compete alone, without other machines running. You will have 5 minutes to run your machine at most three times. Two percent of your course grade comes from this test. 3) Team Preliminary Contest (Week of March 10) This team-constructed machine must be computer triggered and controlled. You can use the entire supply kit and 5 mousetraps. The machine will be evaluated on pushing Donkey Kong and Bowser, as well as collecting the shining star. Your device will compete alone, without other machines running. You will have 5 minutes to run your machine at most three times. Your score will be the sum total of your three attempts. Your performance will be ranked against all studios. Two percent of your course grade comes from this test. 4) Qualifying Round (Week of March 24) Your machine will compete against other machines in all aspects of the game. You will compete several times during the studio period, against a variety of opponents. Your score will be ranked only against teams in your studio section. The results from this qualifying round will be used to seed the brackets for the final contest. Two percent of your course grade comes from this test. 5) Final Contest (April 4) Your machine will compete in two events: a Design Review and the Super Mario Brothers Games. a) Design Review: Starting at 5:00pm a panel of judges will perform a design review of your machine. You will need to describe your machine quickly and clearly to the judges that visit your machine. The judges will evaluate your team on aesthetics, ingenuity, and presentation. Five percent of your course grade comes from this test. b) Super Mario Brothers: Each machine will compete in at least two games. The top two machines in each game will be declared winners. All machines with at least 1 win in the first two rounds will proceed to the third round. Only winners in the 3rd round will proceed to the 4th round, etc. Eight percent of your course grade comes from this evaluation. 2. DETAILS 2.1 Arcade The arcade is a square with 7-foot-long sides, as shown in Figure 2. The surface is supported by 2x4's, so it is elevated approximately 4 inches above ground. There are also 2x4's around the top perimeter. The arcade is divided into 4 equal size zones of different colors. The zones are bounded by the inside edge of the 2x4 perimeter and the diagonal dividing lines on the left and right sides of each zone. The volume of space above a zone is also part of the zone. The center of the arcade is approximately 2 feet in diameter, as shown by the side view in Figure 3. The center rotates in the clockwise direction at approximately 6 rpm. The front edge of the green tube is approximately 12 inches high. The princess sits on a level another 6 inches higher. Your device should be robust to uncertainties in these dimensions. 2 7.0' 1.0' 1.5' 2.5' 2.0' ME2110 - Creative Decisions and Design 7.0' 1.0' Princess! 1.5' 2.5' Peach 0.5' Down the! Green Tube 1.0' Side View of Arcade Center 2.0' Fig 2. Approximate Arcade Dimensions. Fig 3. Approximate Center Dimensions. 2.2 Building Materials. To limit the expense and complexity of your design, you are permitted to use energy only from the controller box, the pneumatics, five mousetraps, and gravity. Your team will be provided with a set of actuators, such as motors, solenoids, and pneumatic cylinders. No other actuators may be driven by the computer. The computer also powers the sensors, whichPrincess include an! IR range detector, an encoder, and some switches. You may purchase additional building materialsPeach and sensors as long as your team budget remains under $100. You are required0.5' to turn in a bill of materialsDown withthe! the associated cost for each part in your final report. 2.3 Contest Format Green Tube From 5-6:00pm1.0' your devices will be presented in a design review. The design review is based on aesthetics, ingenuity, and presentation. You are allowed to \dress up" yourselves, your machine, and your presentation area in orderSide to maximize View of yourArcade score. Center At least one team member will need to be in attendance during the design review to discuss the features of your machine. There will be an award given for \Best in Show", which does not count towards your grade. The Super Mario Brothers games begin at 6:15pm. 2.4 Details of Competition Scoring All scoring is based on the state of the arcade at the end of the 40-sec competition. Push Donkey Kong and Bowser out of your Zone. For each Donkey Kong or Bowser that ends up completely in your zone, you will be penalized -8 pts. If even the smallest part of a troublemaker is in your zone at the end of the game period, then you will be penalized -3 pts. Given that there are 8 total troublemakers in the arcade, you could end up with -64 points... Collect Coins. The gold coins (ping pong balls) will be placed along the zone edges.