TETRIS

author: Anirudh Sahu

description: Tetris game built on a custom PCB, and whats even cooler is that it uses a very tiny mcu, Attiny85 not ESP32, which makes it too compact, there's even a cool case for the PCB. it uses a 1.3 inch oled display to show the game and 4 buttons for controling. it also has a buzzer to play sounds

created_at: 2024-07-17

Time spent - 11 HR

July 17 - Started making the prototype and schematic

So first I did brainstortming of what to create and then I thought of the old tetris console and I thought why not create it!!! so I took my pen and copy and made a rough sketch and then I started making the schematic on EasyEDA, this phase was to finalize the display , buttons, buzzer and power supply. selecting the mcu was a very important thing, goal was to make the design minimal yet functional, so I chose the ATtiny85 due to its size but since the ATtiny85 only has five GPIOs, I had to be carefully on what to select

Time spent - 2hr

July 18 - PCB designing

I had never used this chip beforeso I also searched online to learn what things it can do I read that it has less memory and is slow compared to ESP32 So continued with making a few changes in the schematic and then started with the actual PCB this is how it looks now

Time spent - 1 hr

July 19 - Redesign PCB

I first tried to make the board in a sideways but it looked weird and messy and the wiring that connect everything looked bad so it was looking ugly so I need to retransform it so I moved all the parts again and made fresh wires between themand this time, it looked way cleaner and easier to understand, I added the silkscreen and completed the routing, I checked that all the wires were oka and nothing was shorting, and every part had space and kindoff finished the full PCB

Time spent - 2hr

July 20 - 3D Designing

so the worst part came again!!! I hate cad now because I dont have a 3d printer nor I have any of my 3d prints 😢 But yeah I started it and then the usual sketch excrude work and finally it was done I did initally made the wrong holes but then fixed them and yeah cad is too tiring It was really hard because my PC is slow, and Fusion360 kept freezing SO yeah it takes hell lot of time but somehow I did it After lots of fixing and moving and fixing again, the box started to look really awesome, even if I can’t print it yet Time spent - 4 Hr

July 21 - Firmware , BOM

so the most useless works go here, I have never worked with attiny so idk what it will do but got my basic firmware ready and then the most fun part finding the parts and making the BOM I added the ATtiny85, the OLED screen, 4 push buttons, the buzzer, resistors, caps, a battery holder, I had to searhc on many site to get the stuff on time and in the cheapest I found robocraze to be the most reliable one I'm expert in this now so It was too fun actually doing it I loved it Time Spent - 2Hr