Reaction Time Tester

• Test yourself with this Python-based mini-game for the micro:bit and OLED! Written by Jensen from Raffles Institution.

Goals

1. Assemble a reaction time tester.
2. Try not to break it when testing yourself!

Materials

• 1 x Tinker Kit (or OLED display)

• 1 x Brain

• 1 x You

Step 1 – Input/Output

• Attach the MicroBit to the Breakout Board.

• Connect the LED to pin 12, which is a digital pin.

• Connect the light detector to pin 8, another digital pin.

• Brown to G (ground), red to V (voltage) and orange to S (signal).

• These tell us if light is on or off.

• Connect the OLED display to the I^2C pins. Any one set will do.

• Connect your micro:bit to the computer, and download the Mu Editor.

Step 2 – File Transfer

• We need to download some modules to be used in the project.

• From This link, download the module as a zip file.

• Write the code (first screenshot) in Mu Editor to import the files.

• Be sure to have the files in the same folder as the project.

• Transfer a few of the files from your computer to the microbit.

• On Windows, be sure to put the files in a folder under users/”Username”/mu-code for them to be detected my mu-editor.

• These files are the modules that are not originally present on the micro:bit for you to import.

Step 3 – Loading Screens

• This step isn’t really necessary , but it adds a little flair into your project.

• We display this loading on the OLED module

• Using the module “add_text”, we can display text and other characters onto the display

• We show the animation using the function “loading_screen()”

• If you want more variations of the loading screen, head down to the bottom of the post.

Step 4 – Code the Game

• Here’s the actual test itself.

• First, we have to have a time to wait before showing the indicator for the player to press the button.

• We randomly generate the number and parse it into milliseconds by adding “000” to the end of the number after turning the original number into a string.

• The variables time1 and time2 refer to 2 arbitrary points in time before the “#” ( the indicator to the player) symbol is shown.

• One quirk about micropython and the MicroBit to note is that the time module is replaced by the utime module, and utime has to be imported instead of time.

Step 5 – A Little More Logic

• This is the step where we calculate and display the player’s reaction time.

• This is done by calculating the time between when the indicator is displayed and when the player presses the button.

• Then, we display the player’s reaction time to the OLED display.

Bonus loading effects:

• This one utilizes the light sensor and the LED to start the game.

• It detects light and once the light is covered, the game will start.

This next animation is simple: display the characters “3”, “2” , and “1”, as a countdown before starting the game. The code is pretty self explanatory.