Home-built shooting game with Nerf targets and a Raspberry Pi
Ready, Aim, Fire
© Lead Image © Tithi Luadthong, 123rf.com
A cool Nerf gun game for a neighborhood party provides a lesson in Python coding with multiple processors.
Last Halloween, I was asked to put together a Nerf game for a local neighborhood party. Not wanting to do just the same old thing, I got together with a couple of local makers, and we built a set of electronic targets to create a real-life tower defense game! Although COVID put a damper on this year's plans, we still managed to get most of the hardware together to expand the experience for a second round.
The original game had three targets: an Arduino Uno [1] brain, an audio amplifier, and a loudspeaker. Each target was placed inside a wooden structure that we called a "tower" (Figure 1). The object of the game was to shoot at the targets with a gun firing Nerf darts. A confetti canon was also built into the tower to announce when the tower "fell," which means that the target on the tower had sustained a predefined number of hits from the Nerf gun. We built two identical tower sets, one for each end of the field. Each system operated independently. The game monitors were responsible for powering down the system when the other team won.
Figure 1: The original Nerf targets: The blue disks are worth one point; the red disk in the center tower is worth three points.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Ubuntu Core 26 Offers Game-Changing Enterprise Features
Ubuntu Core 26 could be a game-changer for organizations looking for increased security and reliability.
-
AI Flooding the Linux Kernel Security Mailing List
AI is giving Linus Torvalds a headache, but not in the way you might think.
-
Top Priorities for Open Source Pros Seeking a New Job
Professional fulfillment tops the list, according to LPI report.
-
Container-Based Fedora Hummingbird Designed for Agent-First Builders
Fedora Hummingbird brings the same approach to the host OS as it does to containers to level up security.
-
Linux kernel Developers Considering a Kill Switch
With the rise of Linux vulnerabilities, the kernel developers are now considering adding a component that could help temporarily mitigate against them… in the form of a kill switch.
-
Fedora 44 Now Gaming Ready
The latest version of Fedora has been released with gaming support.
-
Manjaro 26.1 Preview Unveils New Features
The latest Manjaro 26.1 preview has been released with new desktop versions, a new kernel, and more.
-
Microsoft Issues Warning About Linux Vulnerability
The company behind Windows has released information about a flaw that affects millions of Linux systems.
-
Is AI Coming to Your Ubuntu Desktop?
According to the VP of Engineering at Canonical, AI could soon be added to the Ubuntu desktop distribution.
-
Framework Laptop 13 Pro Competes with the Best
Framework has released what might be considered the MacBook of Linux devices.