Finite State Machine

I think I’m going to have to put together a finite state machine for the robot.  The robot for Pong had essentially two states:  “Playing” and “Totally Flipping Out”.  I need to do a better job than that for this one.

Here’s the basic states for Kaboom!:

• Bombs on screen:  Track the lowest bomb.
• No Bombs on Screen: Press button.
• No Buckets on Screen:  Hit Game Reset switch.

At this time, it won’t be able to hit the Game Reset switch itself, so it should probably put a notice on the screen for human intervention.  ((And I don’t want to give it the ability to hit the reset switch itself.  You teach it how to do that and you never know what it’s capable of.))  For the “No Bombs on Screen” state, it’s going to have to hit the button, then wait before trying to hit the button again, otherwise it’ll hit the button a second time, before the bombs start to fall, and it’ll lose precious reaction time.  When the bombs are on the screen, it’s going to have to be careful and make sure that it doesn’t get fooled by blips where the lowest bomb disappears for a frame.  However, it can’t be too careful, since it’s going to have to move to the next spot as soon as it catches a bomb.

For now, I’ll get the “Bombs on Screen” state going, since that’s the one that’s important.  I can hit the button myself for now, as long as I’m careful to keep my fingers clear of the spinning bricks.