Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this “score projector” thing, and I gotta say, it’s pretty neat. I wanted a simple way to keep track of scores for, you know, game nights, little competitions with the kids, that sort of thing. Nothing fancy, just a basic display.
Starting Out
First, I grabbed an old monitor I had lying around. Seriously, this thing was collecting dust in the attic. Any old screen will do, as long as it works. I figured, might as well put it to good use, right?
Then, I needed something to actually, you know, power this thing. I used a Raspberry Pi – a tiny, cheap computer. I already had one from a previous project, but they’re pretty easy to get your hands on.
Setting Up the Pi
- I flashed an operating system onto an SD card. I just went with the standard Raspberry Pi OS, nothing special.
- Popped the SD card into the Pi, hooked up the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and plugged it in. Booted right up!
- Got it connected to my Wi-Fi. Gotta have internet, obviously.
- Opened up the terminal – that’s the command-line interface, where you type in all the instructions.
Coding and Running
I used Python. Beacuse I wanted to make a simple digital scoreboard that shows the scores for two teams. I also used Tkinter library to Create a graphical user interface (GUI) for the scoreboard.
I spent an embarrassingly long time tweaking the colors and fonts. Making it look just right, you know? I’m no designer, but I wanted it to be readable from across the room.
The Final Result
And… that’s pretty much it! It’s not exactly rocket science, but it works. I can update the scores, reset everything, and it all displays nice and big on the monitor. Now, when we have our little competitions, everyone can see the score clearly. No more squinting at a tiny piece of paper!
It’s a pretty basic setup, but it does exactly what I need. Plus, it was a fun little project to keep me busy. I might add some extra features later, like a timer or something. Who knows? The possibilities are endless!