Image of Micro:Hero project

Micro:Hero

The micro:hero is a labor of love Guitar Hero emulation that uses the BBC Microbit v2 board. The gameplay loop is as follows: The console has five light-up buttons. When the game starts, the buttons will light up in a sequence, one button at a time. When a button lights up, the player will have a short amount of time to press the button that lit up(and only that button), or a point will be deducted. When enough points are deducted, game's over. If you thought that was too easy: we have a pulse sensor that attaches to the player's finger. When the player's pulse goes above a certain threshold (ie: when they get nervous enough) the buttons will light up in quicker succession, and the player will have less time to click the buttons before a point is deducted. Also, each button press is associated with a note in the Gb pentatonic scale, so you can make beautiful music to calm yourself down

Important Features

Microbit v2 image

Micro:bit V2

The Microbit was originally a result of the BBC Computer Literacy Project from the 80s. It has since been reimagined with more modern and powerful features. It contains the Nordic Semiconductors nRF52833 microcontroller, with 512kB of flash memory and 128kB of SRAM, an arm cortex m4f microprocessor, and many other useful peripherals.

Sparkfun Qwiic Button

The Sparkfun Qwiic Button is a programmable button breakout.We have our buttons configured to send information about whether they have been pressed through I2C, as well as to light up the LED on the button to indicate that the player has to press the button. We poll the buttons 10 times a second to determine whether they have been pressed within the time interval between flashes.

photo of Sparkfun Qwiic Button
photo of pulse sensor

Pulse Sensor

The Pulse Sensor uses an optical heart rate sensor to quantify how nervous the player is. It gives analog data which is interpreted by the Successive Approximation Analog to Digital Converter aboard the nRF52833. Above a certain threshold, the button flashes happen quicker and the player has less time to click them.

Speaker Amp

The Speaker amp enhances the quality of the audio and applies dynamic gain

photo of Qwiic Speaker Amp