Nixie hardware working (badge dispenser not!)

Got the circuit board for the nixie tube control at the weekend. Built and worked first time (phew!). Just need to do the software for the AVR.

Things not going so well on the badge dispenser. Really reaching the limits of precision engineering on that one. There is enough flex in the carousel wheel that the badges can slide underneath and get stuck. Ideas for Mk3 design though…..

I also got around to coding a “demo” mode to teach people how to play the game. One of the learnings from Newcastle is it helps people a lot to understand if they see how the controls work first. The demo will land the lander on the first pad and provide guidance on what it’s doing. Something rather odd about writing a closed-loop control system for a physical system that is just being emulated on the same machine – but there you go. I actually cheated and added some helpful damping to the physics for the demo mode which isn’t there when humans play it. Too much effort to write a proper control system.