Game Tin; with the EFM32GG Giant Gecko

One of our Silicon Labs community members posted the below article which I found both fun and informative and I asked them if they minded me sharing it with the Design Spark community. Thanks Nick for agreeing and sharing the source files which you can find links for towards the end of the document.

Basically the project is to design and build an energy friendly, hand held electronic game that is capable of running off of a supercap with solar cells to support. Due to the extreme low energy budget the EFM32GG Giant Gecko M3 microcontroller was chosen for the application.

The EFM32 range of starter kits from Silicon Labs have just been significantly reduced in price without removing any of the key features such as the Energy and Power Profiler. The idea is to enable Engineers to experience for themselves the extremely low energy features and advantages of the EF32 range of ARM M0+, M3 and M4 Microcontrollers at a price normally only found on very basic starter kits.

All of these starter kits are available from RS

(790-4126) Starter Kit for EFM32GG
(790-4123) New Starter Kit for EFMZG
(790-4120) Starter Kit for EFM32LG
(712-7082) EFM32 GECKO STARTER KIT
(790-4139) Starter Kit for EFM32-TG

The 'Game Tin'

Background
I've wanted to do a project built around an ultracapacitor for a while now. I finally decided to do it and the Game Tin is the result. The Game Tin is a handheld gaming device that is designed to mount inside of an Altoids Smalls mint tin. I incorporated solar cells to augment the limited energy capacity of the ultracapacitor. Given the limited energy available, I needed good low power solutions for the LCD and microcontroller. I was drawn to the Sharp Memory Display and eventually found AN0048, SlimWatch, and OTM-02. With all these great references, I decided to go with a Silicon Labs microcontroller.

Here is a picture of a Game Tin prototype unit put together and mounted in the Altoids smalls tin.

Features

•  Fully charge in 30 seconds via USB
• Stay charged indefinitely outdoors via solar energy
• Hours of runtime on a single charge when no solar energy is available
• Download and store games and applications
• Eco-concious design
• Open source hardware and software

Here is a picture of the Game Tin prototype PCBs with parts populated.

• Tech Spec
• EFM32GG332F1024 microcontroller
• Silicone gamepad buttons
• USB Micro B port
• Solar cells (total 44.6 mW power @ 128x128 pixel Sharp memory display Maximum Power Point in 1 sun conditions)
• 10F ultracapacitor with 9 mWhr capacity

Current Status

The Game Tin is still a work in progress but I have some data to share. So far I've ported one game to the platform that was originally targeting the Hackvision Arduino platform. The game is Poofy Adventure and it is a platformer style game. It will serve as a nice test bed for making power optimizations as it is fairly well suited to taking advantage of the memory display. The game is running at 20 frames per second. Most of the time only 8-16 lines per frame need to be updated until the screen scrolls once the edge is reached. Currently it is not optimized to take advantage of that or other things mentioned in AN0048. Given that, it has a 1.5 hour runtime off of the ultracapacitor alone with no solar contribution. Outdoors in good sunlight, it will run indefinitely and actually charge the ultracapacitor. I'm looking forward to see what I can get after optimizing it.

 The following video talks a little bit about application management and runs through a short demo of Poofy Adventure.

I have more information on my website including a blog talking about various aspects of development and testing. Check it out if you are interested.

 Game Tin Website

To make things easy, I'll also include a link here to the source files. The schematic capture and PCB design is being done in KiCad. Here is where you can find links to all of the repositories.

Source files