We all know about it. The fall of mankind. Adam and Eve, despite having been warned to the contrary, ate from the tree of knowledge because the serpent had tempted her. And that was the end of paradise for them. The trainees at KRIWAN simply turned the story of creation around and made it into a lesson on acquiring knowledge and modern learning. The name of the lesson: Snake – the popular computer game of the 1990s in the KRIWAN 1.0 version.

Snake - The Original

›Snake‹ is a computer game classic – with a high fun factor. It was developed at the end of the 1970s and experienced a revival as a mobile phone game in the 1990s. At the time, the game could be played on mobile phones. In particular, Nokia models of the 1990s came with Snake pre-installed. It is thought that a considerable number of people bought a Nokia cell
phone simply because of Snake.

The basic idea behind the game is a simple one and wets the appetite for more: a snake, which can move straight ahead or at right angles, is guided across a playing field. ›Snacks‹ (apples) appear at random and have to be collected by the snake.

Each ›snack‹ makes the snake longer and faster, and the playing field fuller, which makes it harder for the player to guide the snake. That’s because the snake is not allowed to touch itself – if it does, the game is over.

Skillful players will keep going for as long as possible and collect lots of points! This is something the game also shares with training.

How the Snake came to the fair

When an idea for a training fair had to be found in 2016 to present KRIWAN as an attractive training company and innovative employer, the HR department asked the trainees for their help. After all, who better to inform and inspire the next generation of trainees than the current group of trainees themselves?

In a joint brainstorming session, the idea came up of what to do with LED cubes: »Light attracts people – and that’s not a bad thing for a trade fair event, where many exhibitors compete for the attention of visitors with interesting offers,« thought Michael Triller, Trainee Electronics Technician for devices and systems. The trainees happily took up the challenge – and took a professionally critical look at the options.

»The light on its own isn’t enough. It may attract attention, but ultimately people shouldn’t only come to the booth but also stay there for a while, engage with KRIWAN and obtain information for themselves,« says Michael Triller, explaining his demands for the project.

From Idea to Concept

»We sat down and pondered things together until THE IDEA came to us: why not develop a GAME like Snake with LEDs from LED cubes as a way to fascinate young visitors to the trade fair?« recounts Marco Zimmermann, who now works in Technical Support.

»The reasons were immediately apparent to us. Youngsters with an interest in technology love computer games and will come to the exhibition stand – simply to play. It goes without saying that they enter into conversation with us,« says Marco Zimmermann with a smile. »What’s more, action at the booth attracts people to watch the games.«

»I was immediately thrilled by the idea of creating a KRIWAN version of the Snake computer game for the trainee fair. The trainees looked beyond their own horizons during the concept phase and, in addition to the technical workflow, thought about ways to enter into discussions about the game with their ›successors‹, and came up with prizes for the successful players. I particularly liked the idea because it’s an example of how we work together at KRIWAN: as a team, swapping ideas with each other and proactively looking ahead. Last but not least: the trainees were able to present what they are allowed to create independently at KRIWAN,« says Gabriele Häußler, Training Officer and person responsible for commercial training at KRIWAN.

From Concept zo Implementation

The idea had been found. The starting shot to implement it had been fired! Now, of course, the young planners and inventors also wanted to show that the whole thing was not just some fantasy but really feasible, and that they could get started on time for the trade fair. »The Snake computer game classic was the perfect choice for a matrix of LED diodes. The plan was to electronically control the changing colors of the LEDs to display animations and interaction with the game,« says Lukas Oechsner, now a specialist in Production at KRIWAN.

»In the initial planning, we assumed an LED playing field of 40 × 40 cm consisting of individual small LED cubes,« explains Lukas Oechsner. »But it was too small for us to present at a trade fair. Nobody would see anything. We wanted to have an eye-catcher at the fair that really caught people’s attention. Another problem was that individual LED cubes would not have been stable enough. At trade fairs, visitors sometimes bump into things.«

»The plan was changed at short notice: instead of individual LED cubes, we decided to use an LED screen measuring 1 × 1 m,« continues Lukas Oechsner. »That’s a decent size. To make the whole thing stable, we had a timber frame and sheet metal cladding built by the carpenter. The planning and monitoring of the implementation was all done by ourselves. The LEDs are set 3 cm apart. Each LED was originally to have had its own PCB. But that would have meant 30 × 30 LEDs, making a total of 900 PCBs – far too many. We had to find another solution. So we connected the LEDs to each other in serial,« explains Lukas Oechsner.

Fine-Tuning and Finishing

Little by little, all the problems were solved: the power and voltage supply were installed, data lines set up, the necessary components such as mains connections, resistors, transistors, etc. were connected to each other. »We did most of this as a team of trainees on our own initiative. Roman Zimmermann, then a student on the cooperative electrical engineering course at Reinhold Würth University, Künzelsau Campus, and today a Software Developer at KRIWAN, supported us in programming the game logic of Snake using the free software Jinx! He also helped us to create other animations in addition to Snake, which we wanted to play later as break-fillers,« says Michael Triller.

After about three months of intensive work, the time had come: the first Snake tournament kicked of live and in color! Location: Vitamin b – the company contact fair of Reinhold Würth University in Künzelsau. »Nobody else had this at their booth – people were gathering up at ours!« says a delighted Michael Triller about the successful trade fair appearance.

Gabriele Häußler is also enthusiastic, »Our trainees implemented the project independently and with a high degree of motivation. This makes it all the more fun to present the result. The young people who came to our booth also felt this. Such a project is much more than a brochure, a teaching conversation or a curriculum. It teaches at eye level what and, above all, how to learn while training at KRIWAN. It was also a successful project because some of the Snake players succumbed to the temptation to apply to us.«