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Michal Zalewski’s Conway’s Game of Life project turns every cell into a real illuminated button. The 17×17 board contains 289 NKK JB15LPF-JF tactile buttons on a custom PCB, enclosed in wood and controlled by a Microchip AVR128DA64. You press cells to draw a starting pattern, then the firmware computes each generation and shows the living cells through the button lights.
It is best understood as a digital cellular-automaton simulation with a tactile, illuminated interface—not a mechanical machine whose parts physically reproduce the rules.
What Conway’s Game of Life is doing on the board
Life is a grid-based cellular automaton. Each cell is either alive or dead, and the board advances in discrete generations:
- A live cell survives with two or three live neighbors.
- A dead cell becomes alive with exactly three live neighbors.
- All other live cells die or remain dead.
Those simple rules produce still lifes such as blocks, oscillators such as blinkers, gliders, and populations that expand, collide or disappear. A button is a natural physical representation: pressing it changes a cell, while its lamp shows the current state.
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For background on the same cellular-automaton concept in a smaller open hardware project, see Adafruit’s Game of Life guide.
What Zalewski built
Hackaday’s March 20, 2026 report describes a 17×17 illuminated button matrix built by Michal Zalewski. The arithmetic is straightforward: 17 × 17 gives 289 cells and therefore 289 buttons. A custom PCB connects the grid to an AVR128DA64 microcontroller, with a wooden enclosure providing the finished object’s structure.
| Element | Verified detail |
|---|---|
| Grid | 17×17 cells |
| Buttons | 289 NKK JB15LPF-JF illuminated tactile buttons |
| Controller | Microchip AVR128DA64 |
| Electronics | Custom PCB, MOSFETs and transistors |
| Enclosure | Wooden |
| Display and input | Matrix scanning is used for lighting and button detection |
The primary project report, including video and downloadable project files, is at Hackaday.
How a person uses it
- Press individual cells to create an initial population.
- Let the embedded system calculate the next generation.
- Watch the illuminated cells change as the pattern evolves.
- Press cells again to draw, erase or modify the pattern.
This makes experimentation more direct than clicking on a monitor. You can physically sketch a glider or oscillator, observe its behavior, and intervene with another press. The cells themselves do not move, however; the microcontroller stores their states and updates the lights.
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How the electronics can control 289 cells
The board does not need one dedicated microcontroller pin for every button and LED. Instead, it scans rows and columns. Switching circuitry activates part of the matrix, reads the relevant button paths and drives the corresponding lights, then moves to the next part of the grid. The scan repeats rapidly enough that persistence of vision makes the lamps appear continuously lit.
The same general arrangement saves input pins and output channels, but it creates engineering work. The design must coordinate display refresh with button reads, provide suitable current paths through the MOSFETs and transistors, and avoid false signals caused by shared lines. Typical concerns include ghost illumination, switch bounce, uneven brightness, peak multiplexed current, electrical noise and power-supply limits.
The report confirms the scanning approach and duty-cycle-controlled lighting, but does not publish a scan frequency, LED current, debounce algorithm, transistor part numbers or power budget. Those details should not be inferred from the component list.
What the firmware is responsible for
At a conceptual level, the firmware maintains a two-dimensional array, reads button activity, computes a next-generation array from neighboring cells and continuously refreshes the matrix display. A practical implementation also has to decide when a press edits the running simulation, how long each generation remains visible and what happens at the outer edge of the board.
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The available coverage does not establish whether the board wraps at its edges or treats out-of-bounds neighbors as dead. It also does not specify generation timing, pause controls, debounce behavior or the exact editing semantics. The downloadable files may answer those questions, but the project-news article alone is not a complete assembly or firmware guide.
Why the switches cost so much
The selected NKK buttons combine a tactile switch and an integrated light source in one consistent cell. That is visually cleaner than fitting a separate LED beside every ordinary pushbutton, and it gives each position both input and output.
That convenience multiplies quickly. Hackaday reports that the 289-button purchase was estimated at more than $1,000 through DigiKey even with quantity pricing. This is a supplier estimate for the switches, not the finished project’s total price; distributor stock, region and quantity breaks can change it.
The rest of the build still requires a custom PCB, controller, switching components, connectors, power hardware, enclosure materials, assembly, rework, shipping and taxes. No complete final-project cost is published.
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Is it a genuinely physical Game of Life?
It is physical in the interface sense: you press real buttons and see real lights. The computation remains digital inside the AVR128DA64. There are no independently moving tiles, balls, magnets or linkages whose mechanical interactions implement the Life rules.
The most precise description is therefore “an embedded digital Game of Life presented through a large tactile, illuminated hardware interface.” Calling it a mechanical cellular automaton would suggest a different class of project.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Cheaper ways to reproduce the experience
| Approach | What it offers | Main compromise |
|---|---|---|
| Smaller illuminated-button matrix | Retains one tactile input and light per cell with fewer parts | Patterns hit the boundaries sooner |
| Keyboard switches with separate LEDs | Potentially cheaper, widely customizable | Requires keycaps, LED mounting and a different visual layout |
| Capacitive touch with LEDs | Low mechanical complexity and easy scaling | No travel, click or physical press feedback |
| RGB LED matrix plus separate controls | Large, bright display and flexible color effects | Cells are not individually tactile |
| Launchpad-style MIDI grid | Fast software prototype using an existing illuminated controller | Grid size, spacing, protocol and host-computer needs differ |
An RGB matrix is particularly practical when scale and visual effects matter more than pressing each cell. Adafruit provides a CircuitPython example for a 64×32 RGB display and adaptable matrix sizes at its Game of Life tutorial.
A Launchpad-style controller can prototype the interaction without a custom PCB. Novation’s current product range is listed at novationmusic.com/launchpad. Exact pricing and compatibility vary by model and region, so community comparisons such as this discussion should not be treated as current retail specifications.
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The inexpensive educational alternative
Adafruit’s Conway’s Game of Life kit is a very different product: a 4×4 display with 16 LEDs and one on/off/reset button. Its listed price was $12.50 when checked, with quantity prices shown on the product page. It runs from two AA batteries, supports modular expansion and can automatically reset after a static or stagnant state.
That kit is a sensible beginner, classroom or workshop purchase, but it does not provide 289 individually pressable cells. Choose it for low-cost learning, not as a miniature version of Zalewski’s tactile board.
What remains undocumented
- Exact scan rate, multiplexing ratio and LED current.
- Power consumption and supply requirements.
- Debounce method and behavior while a generation is running.
- Boundary conditions at the outer edge.
- PCB dimensions, enclosure dimensions and complete bill of materials.
- Firmware controls, timing settings and licensing terms.
Consequently, the project is excellent inspiration for a custom build, but the article should not be treated as a verified step-by-step reproduction guide.
Verdict
The computational novelty is modest—Life’s rules are elementary. The achievement is physical design: 289 expensive illuminated switches, a scanned matrix, custom electronics and an enclosure turn a familiar simulation into an object people can draw on and watch evolve. If you want that exact tactile, edge-to-edge experience, the cost is justified by the interface and craftsmanship. If you mainly want a large display or an affordable learning project, an RGB matrix, MIDI grid or small Adafruit kit is more practical.
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