The Game

Circuit Racers is an electronic board game based off the paper-and-pencil Dots and Boxes game. Players take turns placing pieces of 4 possible shapes on the board, attempting to connect a battery and LED in a circuit. The first player to complete a circuit claims it as their own by flipping the glowing LED piece to their color, red or blue. Whoever connects the most circuits wins.

The Process

This game was created for my Toy Product Design class (MIT 2.00b). To create this game, our team of 5 students worked through a basic product development cycle.

We began with brainstorming, using the class’s theme of “In the Dark” for inspiration. After narrowing the ideas down to 2, Circuit Racers and a laser tag game, we made quick sketch models for testing. The feedback we received led us to choose Circuit Racers for our final toy. We built both a looks-like and works-like sketch model for the game, further testing both gameplay and the electronics. My focus was on designing the gameplay and on creating the physical game boards.

The final version of the game board was built using a Delrin base, custom water jet cut washers, metal pegs, and vinyl stickers. The pieces are made of PCB, acrylic, and press fit magnets, along with special LED and battery attachments. The LED pieces are designed so that in one orientation they will light up red, and when flipped 180° they will light up blue. A random piece generator is embedded at the top of the board, to tell players which type of piece they must play next.

Our final product was presented in front of an audience of MIT professors, students, and alumni, and placed second out of sixteen teams for overall toy concept.

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