A prop bomb where you need to cut the right wires. This was used as part of an escape game we organized for our family.
See it in action in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxLHOgLmgc
General idea: To "defuse" the "bomb", the players need to cut the right wires (so you need to solder new wires for every game). When the bomb is defused, it displays a secret code (which could for example allow to open a lock sealing the bomb or anything else in an escape game).
Features:
- 6 wires in which you have to cut the right ones
- Countdown to 0
- When no time is left, screen goes red and displays "BOOM"
- For each correct wire that is cut, an asterisk displays on the screen
- When all the correct wires are cut, timer stops, screen goes green and displays a secret code
- As long as an incorect wire is cut, time goes down twice as fast and screen is red
- The bomb can still be defused if an incorrect wire has been cut, provided the wire is reconnected (you could provide players crocodile clips or even solder & iron)
You can power it the way you want, in my case I used a 9V battery (connected to Vin and GND).
The LCD screen I used is compatible with the Hitachi HD44780 standard in order to be usable with the https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/libraries/liquidcrystal/ Arduino module but with the nice addition of being able to change the background color. The specific LCD screen I used is part 399 from Adafruit, cf https://www.adafruit.com/product/399 which I ordered here from DigiKey: https://www.digikey.fr/fr/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/399/5774232
Here is what is looks like:
