Christmas 2000
5th
Anniversary!
Here's what I wanted to do for Christmas 2000:
Click on the following to see a technical diagram of the yard: yard done to scale
I didn't get everything done that I wanted. Check back later as this page will be updated quite a bit in the coming weeks....
Snowmen snowball fight display
While I was working on my display I also experimented with rope light (see Construction
Techniques for more information) and created a display for my parents'
home. The head and body were made of six 18" segments of rope
light. The bent arm was made of three 18" segments and the straight
arm was made of to 18" segments. Each of the four middle snowballs
were made of one 18" segment and then splashes are each made of five
18" segments. Here is an animated picture of what it looks like (367Kb file size - be patient
while it loads, please):
This isn't exactly what the display does. I've changed the timings to keep the file size as small as possible. Basically the display is split up into 4 different stages. During each stage both snowmen throw snowballs with varying results (sometimes a hit, sometimes a splat). Each stage is separated by 5 seconds of the snowmen doing nothing.
The first stage has each step in the animation 500ms long. The second stage has each step 400ms long. The third stage has steps of 300ms long. The last stage is split into two parts with the first half having steps of 200ms long and the last half having steps of 100ms long. Basically each snowman throws snowballs faster and faster until it all stops with this last stage, waits 5 seconds, and then starts over.
Here's a drawing that shows the placement of all the snowballs and various animated elements. There are four paths a snowball can take:
The following lists which outputs on the brain board connect to which parts
of the display:
1= left arm back
2 = left arm forward
3 = left snowman face hit
4 = left splat
5 = high left snowball
6 = low left snowball
7 = low right snowball
8 = high right snowball
A = right splat
B = right snowman face hit
C = right arm forward
D = right arm back
Here is the order of what happens in the display:
delay = 500ms (half a second for each frame of animation)
lrmiss (this means snowball travels left to right and is a miss or splat)
rlhit (snowball travels right to left and scores a hit)
lrhit (left to right and scores a hit)
rlmiss (right to left and misses/splat)
Pause 5 seconds
delay = 400ms (2/5ths of a second for each frame of animation)
lrhit
lrhit
rlhit
lrmiss
rlmiss
rlhit
Pause 5 seconds
delay = 300ms (3/10ths of a second for each frame of animation)
lrhit
rlhit
lrhit
lrmiss
rlhit
rlmiss
rlhit
lrmiss
lrhit
Pause 5 seconds
delay = 200ms (1/5th of a second for each frame)
rlmiss
lrhit
rlhit
lrmiss
rlmiss
lrhit
rlmiss
rlhit
lrhit
lrmiss
rlhit
rlmiss
rlhit
lrmiss
lrhit
Pause 5 seconds
delay = 100ms (1/10th of a second for each frame)
lrhit
rlhit
lrmiss
rlhit
lrhit
rlmiss
lrmiss
rlmiss
lrmiss
rlhit
lrhit
rlmiss
rlhit
lrmiss
lrhit
Pause 5 seconds then start over
If anyone has any questions about this display please feel free to e-mail me about it. I've already had one person purchase from me a pre-programmed chip with the above pattern on it.
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Last modified on 09/27/01
