Nick Carpenter
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Whack-a-Mole Electromechanical Game

  • Electromechanical
  • Embedded
  • MicroPython
  • Power
Type
Class project, Cornerstone of Engineering 1, Sep to Dec 2025
Role
Team project; I focused on the electronics and the dual-battery power fix
Tools
Raspberry Pi Pico, MicroPython, Servo motors, LCD
Status
Completed.
The finished Whack-a-Mole arcade game
The finished Whack-a-Mole arcade game
First breadboard prototype of the control circuit
First breadboard prototype of the control circuit
Revised breadboard build after the power fix
Revised breadboard build after the power fix

The Whack-a-Mole Electromechanical Game is an arcade game my team built for Cornerstone of Engineering 1. It uses five servo motors, physical buttons, and an LCD to show scores in real time, all managed by a Raspberry Pi Pico with MicroPython.

The biggest engineering challenge was making the game reliable. I found that power instability was causing voltage dropouts, so I fixed it by adding a dual-battery setup. This solved the problem and made the game consistently playable.