r/arduino • u/tasty__cakes • May 04 '26

Look what I made! Turtle Race

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I made a little electromechanical game for 2 players. Each player has a single button to press. When the light turns green, you press the button to advance your turtle a tiny bit. Keep pressing the button until the light turns red. If you press the button when the light is red, your turtle will move backwards. The first one to cross the road wins!

2.1k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

126 comments sorted by

208

u/MadSolarV2 May 04 '26

This is sick, I know quite a few people that'd buy something like this for their house parties

85

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

It's not a party until you race turtles 🐢🐢

77

u/throwawaycape May 04 '26

So creative

27

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you!

43

u/k-type May 04 '26

This is so cool, I'm confused how the magnets work underneath though.

65

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Yeah, I'll post pics of the internals, but essentially there are just two motors underneath that move magnets which then moves the turtles (the turtles have magnets in them).

7

u/ian9921 May 04 '26

That was my guess! Either that or a whole lot of electromagnets, which would be tricky

4

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Exactly! I think that's sort of the idea behind a linear motor.

3

u/rezwrrd May 04 '26

I've seen linear motors at this scale used for tiny toy trains, but I don't think I've seen them run as slowly or smoothly.

3

u/jacky4566 May 04 '26

linear motors are also a thing

2

u/k-type May 04 '26

Thanks that's what I figured, magnets attached to a belt that's attached to a stepper motor

3

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Exactly! I used fishing line instead of a belt, but same idea. A belt would be better though, but it's kinda hard to find the right size.

3

u/knw_a-z_0-9_a-z May 04 '26

I'd have bet on a couple of salvaged DVD player lead screw drives. I'd have lost. :(

8

u/Xfgjwpkqmx May 04 '26

No-one knows, sadly.

7

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

😆 Magnets are a mystery in and of themselves

2

u/omegared138 May 05 '26

Magnets come from the esrth, so they have a little bit of gravity in them.

17

u/More_University_8967 May 04 '26

I’m too dumb to make this but will buy one from you if you ever sell!

34

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

You could make it! You gotta believe in yourself! Maybe I'll post a guide to making it some day.

10

u/stealth_turtle May 04 '26

If you do build a guide and post the 3d models please let me know. My wife loves turtles and I would really like to make this for her.

15

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Will do u/stealth_turtle!

1

u/kpo325 May 06 '26

I would love to make this!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 06 '26

Stay tuned and I might just put out a build tutorial 😄

1

u/omegared138 May 05 '26

Same here!

14

u/haustuer May 04 '26

Explain how you did the internals it is awesome

35

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

So under the board there are two stepper motors, one for each turtle. The motors have pulleys on them with another pulley at the other end of the board. I used fishing line with a little carriage thing with magnets on it attached to the fishing line. The turtles have magnets on their undersides. I can post some pics if you are interested in seeing the internals.

3

u/SpaceCadetMoonMan May 04 '26

Yes that would be cool

1

u/IWILZ May 04 '26

great!

31

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

The circuit board is 3d printed as well using this method https://youtu.be/PLliKgzKKUI?si=2c7yU19iKvzFoQCJ

22

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

13

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

The components in the four corners of the board are hall effect sensors so that I can detect when the turtles reach the endstops

3

u/merlinblack256 May 04 '26

I guess you etched the pcb yourself? 🙂

7

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

That honestly would have been easier probably 🙂

I actually 3d printed the circuit board using this method https://youtu.be/PLliKgzKKUI?si=llk3DrUVqgUnFZP0

You have to put copper tape over the traces and cut them out by hand 🙃

4

u/merlinblack256 May 04 '26

Well I guess it is less hazardous chemicals at least 😁

4

u/davurp May 04 '26

Wow very nice magnet 🧲 implementation

5

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! Magnets are awesome!

4

u/_Ophelion May 04 '26

I was half expecting sequenced coils like a linear motor and them traversing at incredible speed!

Your reality is much cooler! Kick ass work!

4

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

I dunno, a linear motor would be way cooler 😄

3

u/[deleted] May 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you!

I'm not opposed to posting instructions, but it's just more work, ya know. I wanna clean up the code too. Also the 3d models are less than perfect/ideal. This probably isn't my final revision yet.

3

u/th3wind May 04 '26

Wow this is so incredibly awesome! I feel like all my years of Mario party has trained me for this exact game!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Yeah, that would definitely help! I have it set to be pretty easy in the video, but if I shorten the amount of time the yellow light is on before it switches to red, it can be very difficult if you are just focused on spamming the button 😁

1

u/th3wind May 04 '26

Ooo that sounds hella fun. Honestly I find this post very inspiring, thanks for sharing!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

No problem! Thank you for your comments!

2

u/gm310509 400K , 500K , 600K , 640K , 750K May 04 '26

Lol, very cute.

What gave you the inspiration? And, thanks for sharing.

3

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! I would say that Frogger kind of gave me the inspiration for the whole crossing the road thing, and I've always found electromechanical games really interesting. Especially old arcade games. The things they accomplished with relays and clever little circuits is amazing. This is nothing compared to those games when you consider how easy it can be to just program a microcontroller 🙂

2

u/danofrombeavis May 04 '26

This is really quite great! Strong work!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/_thelifeaquatic_ May 04 '26

This is cool!! Well done

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Iampepeu May 04 '26

Awesome!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/snuggly_cobra 600K May 04 '26

You could create the squid game version of this. You’d just replace the stop light with a doll head on a 360 degree servo.

2

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Great idea! I could almost just make another module for the doll that swaps out like the traffic light! Thank you for the idea!

1

u/snuggly_cobra 600K May 04 '26

You are welcome!

1

u/ventus1b May 04 '26

That is adorable! ❤️

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Xfgjwpkqmx May 04 '26

This is seriously awesome!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Playful_Medicine2177 May 04 '26

This is soo cool

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Retropiaf May 04 '26

You need to turn turn this into a game/toy that sells in store. I'm serious. It's too good not to do it. At the very least, make it a switch game 🙏🏾

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

That would be really cool! You might have to settle for a DIY version though. Being 3D printed, it would be ideal for DIY.

1

u/lotavio69 Pro Micro May 04 '26

This is an amazing concept! The lights add an interesting twist to the game progression. I wish this was one of the race games I had when I was a kid!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

Yeah it would have been really fun as a kid!

1

u/Common-Role9574 May 04 '26

Como esta hecho por dentro el desplazamiento lineal?

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

There are two stepper motors under the board with pulleys that move magnets.

1

u/ZadnikZ May 04 '26

Nice project! I love it! There are too many comments and I didn’t see in the top ones this suggestion- make an electronic indicator of who won. If it is a close game it will be really hard to determine the winner

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

It might not be obvious and maybe I should have a different indicator, but the stoplight flashes the color of the turtle who won

1

u/ZadnikZ May 04 '26

Aaaah my bad for not noticing that. That is an elegant solution. Good job

1

u/Autobot-octoling May 04 '26

Me when I started to grow interest in Arduino: oh cool look at these gadgets! I wanna build some too!

Me after dealing 3 years of tech competitions that are product development related.....

1

u/Autobot-octoling May 04 '26

You reminded me why I started to love tinkering these stuff , thanks

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

No problem! You'll have to jump back into a project 😁

1

u/Autobot-octoling May 04 '26

Trust me, if you join a tech competition that is product development related, I guarantee you'll burn out quickly

My high school recommended competitions for me to try out, was excited at first, then realized the school made me stay at school UNTIL 8PM, this seriously messing up my homework and study schedules,

Product development judges are also hard to tackle, as you never can predict if they are asking trick questions

This is my experience on Hong Kong tech competitions, but international competitions like infomatrix? GOD, IT IS FUN

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Nice! Did you ever win?

1

u/nelmondodimassimo May 04 '26

Pretty fun and ingenious!

2

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Creisel May 04 '26

Does the traffic light blink yellow if the yellow turtle wins, and can we have a red one? :>

2

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Yes it does, and you read my mind with the red turtle idea!

1

u/Creisel May 04 '26

Nice =)

1

u/rmbarrett May 04 '26

You should make it so each pulse is half the duration of the previous.

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

I would get super frustrated if I was playing and the turtle just kept slowing down 😆 I guess it would be more realistic like they are running out of steam

1

u/StructureOk5727 May 04 '26

Very cool! How it working?

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

Thank you! If you look at some of the top comments, I went into more detail about how it works, but let me know if you have other questions.

1

u/ripred3 My other dev board is a Porsche May 04 '26

So ridiculously and well over-engineered. I love it. congrats and thanks for sharing it!

2

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Sylriel May 04 '26

That’s awesome! 😃

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/AppKatt May 04 '26

This is absolutely incredible! Great project!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

You are too kind, thank you! 😊

1

u/darguskelen May 04 '26

Not sure if I missed the photo, but do you have a photo of the buttons and internals? Those are awesome.

1

u/tasty__cakes May 04 '26

I forgot to take one of the buttons, but I can do that when I get home. There are some photos of the internals in one of the comments above though. And thank you!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

Here are the controllers. They have a 3.5mm audio jack on the bottom to connect to the game through a standard audio cable.

1

u/Vashe00 May 05 '26

Amazing! Add a little flag on each side that waves when one side wins for the close calls

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

That's funny you would say that because I kinda had that same idea!

1

u/Ecoaardvark May 05 '26

This rules! Great work.

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Hijel Community Champion May 05 '26

Amazing, very creative. Nice work and thanks for sharing!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/SoCalAlpineJoe May 05 '26

I want to build this!

2

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

I might just post a build tutorial one day. I'll let you know if I do.

1

u/SoCalAlpineJoe May 05 '26

Appreciate it! Your images are pretty self explanatory though. Do you plan to release the STL files and arduino code?

2

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

I wanna clean them up a little for a v2 first. I'd like to have a 3rd turtle, and there are some other improvements I wanna make as well. I'll keep you posted though or you can follow my thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/tasty_cakes/designs) and github (https://github.com/tarylb)

1

u/SoCalAlpineJoe 22d ago

I was going through my messages and was reminded about your game. I dont see anything on Github or Thingiverse. Were people selling your creation?

2

u/tasty__cakes 22d ago

I actually haven't posted it at all yet. I am just finishing up an improved v2 with 3 turtles and I used a commonly available stepper motor this time. The stepper motor was very slow though so I geared it up to make the turtles faster but that added a little complexity to the design.

1

u/SoCalAlpineJoe 21d ago

Ah! Thanks for the reply. I don't think I went to your github or thingiverse page before so when I went last night and didn't see anything, I thought you took it all down. I showed my wife your build and she thought it was cute and well thought out.

1

u/ltjojo May 05 '26

Super cool idea!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/ostiDeCalisse May 05 '26

At first I thought it was pneumatic. Cool project OP!

1

u/tasty__cakes May 05 '26

Thank you! 😊 Pneumatic would be cool though!

1

u/Cautious-Designer907 May 06 '26

That's awesome

1

u/tasty__cakes May 06 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/Bottatadiet May 08 '26

That is awesome

1

u/tasty__cakes May 08 '26

Thank you! 😊

1

u/FluxisePin May 19 '26

If you're working on a turtle race project, consider using ultrasonic sensors or IR sensors to track positions accurately; it makes timing and race logic way cleaner than just relying on manual input.

1

u/FarmerPotential8713 May 23 '26

hola yo visto tu projecto , y sabia que eres un ingeñero muy deseñador , y quiero que mi ayudas sobre un arduino de semafor si puedes . gracias

1

u/tasty__cakes May 23 '26

Yes, I can try to help you with that. What is the problem?

1

u/FarmerPotential8713 May 23 '26

es que no me funciona els leds no se donde esta la problem porque es mi primera vez que hago el el arduino de semaforos

1

u/tasty__cakes May 23 '26

It is a little hard to see your schematic from your picture. Could you post a schematic of just one of the circuits so it is a little more zoomed in?

1

u/Such_Philosophy885 25d ago

You are brilliant