4-In-A-Row Soldering Kit
If you want to learn to solder, which is generally considered an excellent idea here at Tindie, there are heaps of kits and fun things to build. This Four In A Row game kit is no exception!
If you aren’t familiar with Four in a Row, it’s a simple yet classic adversarial game. Each of the two players in turn place different coloured markers into a column at which point they fall to the lowest unoccupied row in that column. The idea is to try and — you guessed it — get four in a row either vertically, horizontally or diagonally. It’s an addictive fun game.
This kit has a couple of purchase options. There are a few surface mount (SMD) components and, if that feels a bit too much of a challenge, you can have the kit supplied with those pre-soldered. If you’ve assembled some through-hole kits before you could opt to challenge yourself by selecting to fit the SMD parts yourself. SMD parts aside. as a through-hole kit we’d say this is a good starter kit for those new at soldering, although perhaps having done one smaller kit before this might be useful as practice.
The seller provides great assembly instructions and we spotted that there are a few different options when it comes to powering the game. You can run the game directly from a USB supply or you can patch in a regulated 5V supply. There is also a regulated power input where you can connect power between 7 and 12V, so there are lots of options for whatever batteries or power supplies you might have to hand. The kit is supplied with the firmware flashed onto the ATmega328P so once the soldering is done you are all ready to go!