If you really don't want to compile and install the apps to your phone (which I highly recommend, you'll see why later), you can download the APK files from this Instructable. Small hammer / tack hammer Note to the lazy Diamond-tipped engraving bit or drill bit (for drilling holes in stainless steel spring strips) Small hand-held rotary drill/grinder tool (Dremel or similar) Sharp knife / craft knife Other useful tools: Drill and drill bits (I used 1mm, 6mm bits) A few drops of oil or grease, particularly if your maze is 30+ years old like mine :) Required tools: Small tacks, nails or a staplegun (to secure springs in place) ![]() Assorted small screws (to secure servo brackets) paperclip wire (for servo lever arm fixtures) A small block of wood (For mounting the "inner" servo to the ring) I used stainless steel strips found in some wiper blades) 0.5mm aluminium or other pliable sheet metal (for servo brackets) Male box connector pins - either: one 3x2 or two 3x1 (for connecting to servo sockets) Short cable with female 3x2 or larger box connector (an internal USB panel patch cable works well) Google Nexus One or Nexus S with Gingerbread 2.3.4 (not tested on Nexus S) mini servos found in small RC cars/helicopters) Google’s ADK Demo board or compatible ADK board with 2 servo outputs In other words, you can now play the ball maze game by using your phone as a remote controller! These values are passed to the ADK board which acts as the servo controller and controls the tilt on the maze. ![]() This is mapped to two absolute positions between 0-255 for positioning the servo arms. which way is "down") into a coordinates on a two-dimensional plane - one dimension for each servo or axis of rotation on the maze. The idea is relatively simple: monitor the phone’s accelerometer, and translate the three-dimensional acceleration vector (ie. So dig through grandma’s game closet for that old ball maze, grab your Nexus, break out your Google ADK board if you went to Google I/O (or get a compatible one from the suppliers listed here ) and start building! Concept As of writing, I am unaware of any other supported devices or Android versions. Only the Nexus One (Gingerbread 2.3.4) has been tested with the code I'm supplying, but it should work with little to no modifications on a stock up-to-date Nexus S and possibly also Android 3.1 tablets. I worked from 7pm to about 5am, though I probably could have done it in 2-4 hours if I had an Instructable like this to start with - being my first ever Android project, much of that time was reading! I'd never written a real-world Android app before (not that this is very real-world yet.), but I was convinced that it couldn't be too hard. The goal was set: I had one night to make this from scratch, hardware and software. A little while after I got home from Google I/O I found the maze at my parents’ house and shortly thereafter I discovered I had everything I needed to make my very own Googley maze controlled by my Nexus One. ![]() So continuing with my story: I grew up with a ball maze, my parents had one as far back as I can remember. ![]() This Instructable is kind of two instructables in one: first, I'll be illustrating the steps required to set up the ADK from scratch and then I'll be reproducing Google's ball maze on a Nexus One phone to demonstrate a simple use of the ADK board (I'll keep the massive bowling-ball version for another Instructable). To introduce the concept to the Google’s keynote speech they produced a regular ball maze toy, familiar to many, which was controlled by a Motorola Xoom tablet. It's called the Android Open Accessory platform, and it's totally cool. ADK is the Accessory Development Kit, an Arduino-based interface board whereby you can connect your compatible Android device (2.3.4 and any device from 3.1 onwards) to virtually any hardware and use the phone to control a device, or vice-versa. I attended Google I/O 2011 and managed to get my hands on an Android ADK demo board. If you're reading this article you're probably like me: I go through phases where I get so engrossed in a project (which most others would see as trivial), so focused on the goal that sleep and food are afterthoughts, I put my body through a gauntlet to appease some primitive urge of mine to CREATE.
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