DIY LEGO Video Game Wireless Console with ESP32 FutureBoard

Assemble your own Spaceship steering wheel with the ESP32 based Future board, LEGOs and buttons to control your sprite to defeat enemy ships

BeginnerProtip1 hour570

Things used in this project

Hardware components

KittenBot IoT Educational Kit for Future Board

All the things we need are in this kit: USB-C, Robotbit Edu expansion board (including the base and battery), Sugar red button module, Sugar joystick module and LEGO bricks.

KittenBot Future Board

We need two Future boards in the project, one you can find in the kit above, and here is the other one.

Software apps and online services

KittenBot Kittenblock

Story

When playing a game programmed by ourselves, we may need to connect the controller to the computer with a USB cable, which is not so comfortable to play with when the cable limits our operation with the handheld. It's impossible to stand away from the computer or to lie down on the sofa. So to make it more comfortable to play these games, in this project, we will teach you to make a game console with Lego bricks that communicates wirelessly with the Future board of the computer, to control the sprite in the game.

Step 1: Assemble the game console

Assemble this device according to the instruction here, or go to the Schematics part.

Step 2: Connect the circuit

wiring

If you use a normal 4-direction analog joystick module, then the ACD (analog) pinouts should be P0, P1, P12, P14, and P15.

Step 3: Write programs

Two Future boards will be used in this project and the system can be divided into two parts:

The game console sending end, which is to send the control instructions;
Receiving end. A Future board is connected to the computer to receive the instructions from the console to control the interaction of characters in the game.

1. Sending end (gameconsole)

Download the code and open it in Kittenblock. The program needs to be downloaded to the Future board.

If you don't know how to download the program to the board, please refer to the How to use Use Future board with Kittenblock? part of this article

Program source file

Sending end program

2. Receiving end

To process the instructions from the console and interact with the sprites in the game.

Program source file

Receiving end program

How to Use Future board with Kittenblock?

Connect to the main control board

There are two steps connecting to the board: first to use USB-C to connect the Future board hardware-wise, then connect the serial port in the software.

1. Hardware connection

Switch up the Future board

2. Choose hardware - the Future board

3. Connect the serial port

Program Upload

Find the Switch to Coding on the upper right corner and switch it to the coding mode. Then click upload, wait till it has uploaded successfully.

Upload the program