📡 Morse Code Trainer

An Arduino-based interactive game that teaches players to input Morse code using a physical button. Players progress through three difficulty levels by correctly spelling words in Morse code within a 24-second time limit. ⏱️

🎮 How to Play

1. Wire up the circuit (see pin configuration below)
2. Upload morse_trainer.ino to your Arduino Uno
3. Open Serial Monitor at 115200 baud
4. Press the morse button to start the game 🟢
5. A target word will appear in the Serial Monitor
6. Input each letter using dots (short press) and dashes (long press)
7. Pause for 800ms between letters to commit them
8. Get 3 words correct to advance to the next level 🏆
9. You have 3 lives — lose one for each wrong word, skip, or timeout

💡 New to Morse code? Check out the Morse Code Reference!

📶 Difficulty Levels

Level	Words to Advance
🟢 Beginner (3 letters)	3
🟡 Medium (4 letters)	3
🔴 Hard (5 letters)	3

📌 Pin Configuration

⏱️ Timer LEDs (Blue)

Pin	Function
4	LED1 - turns off at 8s
5	LED2 - turns off at 16s
6	LED3 - turns off at 24s

❤️ Lives LEDs (Red)

Pin	Function
11	LIFE1
12	LIFE2
A0	LIFE3

🔘 Buttons

Pin	Function
3	Morse input (polled)
2	OR-gate output of all 4 game buttons (INT0)
7	Next level ⏩
8	Back level ⏪
9	Reset game 🔄
10	Skip word (costs a life) ⚠️

🔧 Hardware Requirements

• Arduino Uno
• 6x LEDs with resistors (3 blue, 3 red)
• 5x push buttons
• 1x OR gate chip (74HC32) to combine game buttons into pin 2
• Pull-down resistors (10kΩ) on each button input

💡 Note: All 4 game buttons feed into a 74HC32 OR gate. The OR gate output connects to pin 2. Each button also has its own direct sense line to pins 7–10 so the ISR can identify which button was pressed.

📁 File Structure

morse_trainer/
├── morse_trainer.ino    # main game logic
├── morse_lookup.h       # morse code character lookup declarations
├── morse_lookup.cpp     # morse code character lookup implementation
└── word_bank.h          # beginner, medium, and hard word banks

⚙️ Technical Design

⏲️ Timer

• Uses Timer2 in CTC mode at 1ms intervals to replace millis()
• tickCount is the single time source for all timed events
• No Arduino time functions (millis(), delay(), tone()) are used anywhere

📊 Timed Events (all derived from tickCount)

• Dot vs dash classification (200ms threshold)
• Inter-letter gap detection (800ms silence)
• 24-second word countdown
• Message display hold (2 seconds)
  • Freezes game for 2 seconds so player can read feedback, then loads next word
• Fail state pause (1 second)
  • All timer LEDs turn off for 1 second to signal time's up, then loads next word

⚡ Interrupts

• All 4 game buttons are OR-gated into a single interrupt pin (pin 2 / INT0)
• gameButtonISR() reads individual sense pins to identify which button fired
• Timer2 ISR increments tickCount every 1ms

👩‍💻 Authors

Kaitlyn Van and Natasha Poon