12/1/2025 - Recap of previous work

I am making this journal entry to log all of the work that I have done before putting the project on Blueprint. I started in middle school. The original plan was to use servo motors to pull magnets through a track, one per game piece. I bought the board, and began taking it apart. The screws were stuck, so I had to drill them out. I found a large area under the board where I should have room for electronics. I also bought the servos, but realized after buying them that they do not rotate enough to pull the magnet through. I then bought continuous servos (I didn’t think of steppers since I didn’t want to deal with motor controllers).
I began the design. I found that where the pieces start, there are supports in the board, so I dremeled holes in them to pass through the magnet track. I then proceeded to spend the next 6 weeks working on the design to 3D print. I started in TinkerCad, but it was very jagged and rectangular. I finally decided to learn parametric modeling. I taught myself OnShape for the next month, then got back to designing the board.
This next part took several months of working every day during lunch at school and after school. I meticulously traced a path in Onshape using a flat picture of the board, then used a sweep extrusion to model a tunnel of sorts for the magnet to pass through. I made an upper layer and a lower layer, each with two tracks so that they do not intersect. I 3D printed it, but the magnet wouldn’t pass through, and could not sand the track out because of the curved design. I decided that on the two major turns of each path, there needed to be spinning wheels for the string and magnet to go around the corners, which also gave me an area to get sandpaper through. I then spent a while modelling those so that it was a smooth transition into the wheel. After that, I needed to figure out how to make them spin. I 3D printed some bearings, and modeled the centers to mount on the board so that the wheels are in a fixed position.
I couldn’t figure out how to make the servos fit, so I changed it up and started working on the mount for the screen. In the movie, there are animations and smoke in the center of the board, so I needed to replicate that. While I was in middle school, I was in contact with someone who made a functional board himself, and he gave me his animations, but did not tell me how he made his own board work because he wanted to see what I came up with myself. I bought a small screen and worked with that for a while, however it was too big and would not fit with the rest of the components. I had to buy an even smaller 2” square screen from AliExpress, which seemed to be the perfect size. I then designed an enclosure for it and its control board, and moved to working on the haptics.
I bought some large vibration motors for haptic feedback, so that the board rumbles like it does in the movie. I also bought a controller, which I never got to work. I tried programming it with the raspberry pi, but I was not as familiar with it as I am now. So, I moved back to something I knew how to do, the tracks.

I struggled with the magnet tracks for a while, but then decided that when the pieces end up on the same square (the paths intersect), the upper magnet track would take the piece previously controlled by the bottom track with it. This is when I pivoted entirely on the design to where I am now working, several years of procrastination later. I decided to use servo motors on a gantry, similar to drawing machines, with an electromagnet on the gantry to pull the converted magnetic pieces to the square they need to go to. This project has been sitting in my closet for the past year and a half, since I couldn’t bring myself to go and buy servo motors. I am very glad that I found Hack Club, because I haven’t had funding since I started the project (my middle school teacher was very helpful in funding an engineering club I started), and I want to finish the project I started so long ago.
The next steps in my project are to design the gantry system with the servos, program the movement system, program the screen for the animations, program the sound and haptic feedback motors, program GoDice to get dice input, and program the game system itself. Up until this point, I have spent around 150 hours on the project, but no hours since the Blueprint start date of October 1.

12/26/2025 - Sourced parts and began redesign

Okay, so I have made a lot of decisions on how this project is going to go. I have decided to go back to the mechanical track method, this time with my better CAD skills. I have completely started over, migrating the project from Onshape to Fusion360. I have the outline of the board and where all of the tracks are, and now I need to lay out how the magnets are going to go and also where the steppers, pi, Arduino, and all other electronics are going to go.

I have also began sourcing parts. I was initally going to get everything from Amazon, but then realized I could save close to $50 by getting stuff off of AliExpress' dollar express bundle page. I put everything I have found so far into the BOM, with links to the items that go to it, however the dollar express thing made it hard to get links for those items with accurate prices. Suprisingly, the stepper motor drivers were actually more expensive on AliExpress.
Additionally, I have decided to use an Arduino for the stepper and haptic motors, as it will be a lot easier to send outputs to that then to the drivers directly.

12/27/2025 - Continued part R&D

Okay, I am back to the idea of a gantry system to control this thing. I will be using an esp32 running FluidNC. This will allow me to have points pre-plot in the software and have my electromagnet gantry move it back and forth. I spent another couple of hours sourcing parts, and also created a diagram to help me keep track of what controls what and where power is going in the electronics.

12/28/2025 - Designed y-axis sliders and rethought life decisions

I decided to use MGN9C linear rails/carriage to make a smooth corexy system for the electromagnet to save space. However, once I designed this, I realized the total thickness once I add on the x axis and electromagnet will be ~25mm. The entire thickness of the board interior that I have to work with is ~27mm. Since the rails are literally butting up against the edge of the board, this leaves no room for the stepper motors to actually move the thing. I thought about making it thicker to leave room for electronics and the steppers, but then the sides that flap out from the board would not be level with the floor. I am thinking of making a kind mechanism to extend and hold up the sides when playing the game, but it seems like it would be quite irritating to use each time you go to play, but it is what it is. Tomorrow I am going to be designing the X axis and seeing where I have space to shove the various components. I probably will just extend it upward, since it seems like the easiest option since I have to redo the center column anyway. I also need to start designing the parts I am going to physically 3D print to mesh with my build, and I will need to continuing to optimize cost to keep it under $200. I just really wanted to buy extra components in case the quality is not good, since I am after all purchasing from AliExpress. I am at $180 in the BOM currently and I haven't even added heat set inserts or belts/pulleys for the corexy system.