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Jukebox

Let’s put together everything we’ve learned so far. To recap, we can now:

  • Read in analog sensors
  • Use analog sensors as if they were digital
  • Produce an analog response (a tone) corresponding to an analog input
  • Make simple tunes
  • Play short sound effects over a background tune, controlled by buttons

Let’s extend this by making a jukebox. The resulting sketch will be a very helpful template with which to build your pinball machine.

Open the jukebox sketch, which should have a second tab named mytunes.h which contains the tunes.

Take a look at the overall structure of the sketch. Notice there are very long comments to help delineate different areas of the sketch. The pinball programs may become quite long, so it’s helpful to do something like this to break it up and guide the eye.

Upload and verify the following:

  • Button 0 should decrease the number on the scoreboard (though it will not drop below 0).
  • Button 2 should increase the number on the scoreboard.
  • Button 1 should start playing the melody associated with that number.
  • Button 3 stops whatever is being played.

You should also notice the shift register LEDs changing to the tune. Read through the jukebox code and get a feel for what it is doing.

CHECKPOINT!

Try the following modifications (remember to save as jukebox-mod.ino and mytunes-mod.h in your Mod folder first!):

  1. Try writing a few new tunes (inside mytunes-mod.h) that go with your pinball theme and add them to the unused higher numbers in your jukebox. You can use the existing songs as templates.
  2. Make up a few sound effects that will integrate with your gameplay; for example, a “point scored” sound, or a “ball dead” sound, and maybe a “game over” sound. Get creative!

Congratulations! You now have a functioning jukebox, and a head start to your pinball machine. This is the end of today’s session.

Have fun writing tunes, and if you can, write a few over the weekend to save time later! You might want to use an online keyboard to figure out the notes that correspond to the notes.h file.