Student designs Cribbage game for those with poor eyesight
As family members aged, it became harder for them to see small game board and pieces
REGINA — Andrew Ashton has been playing Cribbage with his family ever since he was a young child, but as some of his family members age, it is becoming more and more difficult for them to see the small game board and pieces.
Still, no one in the family is ready to give up their longstanding tradition.
“Our family, we’re always playing Cribbage, whether it’s a get-together for Christmas or a family reunion or on vacation or whatever, somebody has the Cribbage board,” said Ashton in a recent phone interview.
“Seeing some of my relatives having issues seeing the board and being able to play on their own, losing a little bit of independence and losing a bit of that tradition, I wanted to come up with a solution to that problem.”
As a second-year student in Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s electronic systems engineering technology program, he needed to come up with an idea for a major project for one of his classes anyway. He decided to build a modified Cribbage game for those with reduced vision.
Cribbage is normally played with a small wooden board and pegs that are moved along the board to keep track of each player’s score. While online versions of the game exist, Ashton said he wanted something people could use to play in person with one another. He also wasn’t a huge fan of the oversized boards and pegs that currently exist on the market.
“I still wanted the game to feel like a regular Cribbage game,” he said.
“I wanted something that still has that physical aspect where you’re sitting in front of somebody, you’re still able to converse and you still have an actual Cribbage board.”
Instead he designed an electronic Cribbage board using 240 tiny LED lights and handheld controllers. The board is built for two players, with half of the LED lights in one colour to mark one person’s score and the other half in another colour for the second person.
The players update their score by pressing a button on their handheld controller. The controller also shows each player’s score. Players still need to provide their own deck of playing cards, but Ashton said decks with larger characters for those with reduced vision are already easily available.
Although the idea may sound simple enough, Ashton said he has been working on the project since September and that it turned out to be more work than he had anticipated — especially working with so many tiny lights.
“That was a little bit difficult to figure out how I was going to connect to all those LEDs, and to do that in an efficient manner,” he said.
He had hoped to finish the project by the end of the school year, but with the COVID-19 pandemic bringing classes to an abrupt halt in March, he has not yet been able to finish building the game. He needs access to the school’s laboratory to finish building his circuit board, but believes another month of work after he can get back into the building will finish his project.
While Ashton is pleased knowing his family will be able to continue playing Cribbage with his modified game board, he also hopes to eventually see his game available on the market or others who could use it.