Squiggly Wire Game
This week, Kai and I built an electronic game of skill out of a wire coat hanger.
You’ve probably seen this one before, the idea is to move a hoop along a bent wire without touching the wire. If you touch the wire, a buzzer sounds and you have to start again.
We built ours out of an old plastic box which once contained chocolate. A wire coat hanger was the main component. I cut off a few inches of the coat hanger to bend into a loop and used the rest to make the squiggly wire. The ends of the wire were bent into tight loops through which I put small bolts to secure it to the box.
The electronics and battery holder were simply glued to the inside of the box using hot-glue which is really an incredibly useful substance.
After I soldered a flexible wire to the loop, Kai put some bicycle handlebar tape around it to make the grip. For strain relief on the wire, I used a cable-tie.
The end of the wire is a yellow “safe zone” which was made simply by wrapping electrical tape around the wire to prevent electrical contact.
The noise maker
I didn’t have a buzzer handy but I did have a 555 timer chip so I used it to build an oscillator and connected that to a small piezo speaker in keeping with my principle of using whatever parts I’ve already got wherever possible.
Much has been written about the 555 timer IC. I have wired mine in the classic astable mode. The values of the components are not at all critical, the formula below shows how to compute the output frequency from the component values. The 100µF capacitor was added to provide a little sustain so that the sound is less “scratchy” when the wire is touched lightly.
Of course, if you are not a complete nerd, you would probably just get a buzzer.
Formula to calculate the output frequency
The result
I was going to paint the box but my wife (who is an artist) said “Noooo! it looks so post-modern in clear plastic with the chocolate label still on it” - so it has stayed un-painted.
This has cost me $0. It is built completely from parts I have found around the house. I like the challenge of trying to use what I have and this project completely achieves that goal. Here are some more photos:
Hi,
I am looking for this fun Squiggly Wire “toy”. Do you know where I can buy one from? I am sure if I really wanted one I can follow your instruction and make one for my self, but my need requires a little professional look(I am looking to place this in my restuarant — as a promotional gimic for my customers)
Thanks,
rgilan01@yahoo.com
gr8americanbagel@yahoo.com
Sorry Rahim, I have not seen them available commercially. Any halfway skilled handyman should be able to build one though, it is really easy. If it was for a restaurant, you’d probably want to make it much bigger with maybe a mechanical bell and flashing lights for dramatic effect.
hi how can i build a squiggly wire like this because i need it for my project
I thought the article was fairly explanatory. Basically you get some stiff wire and bend it into a challenging shape. I just used a wire coat hanger which I cut with some pliers and bent by hand. Then you wire it to some kind of noise maker such as a buzzer, electric bell or if you want to scare the hell out of your children, a car horn. When the loop touches the wire, it completes the electrical circuit and makes a noise.
I took my kids down to a science museum in Wollongong recently and they had a real nice one which also included a stopwatch which would stop automatically if you touched the wire. That was a nice additional feature.
Ty - awesome! Well done - looks fab!