If there’s one thing that we can all agree on, it’s that table football, or foosball, is awesome. As kids, we played it in arcades. As adults, we have it in our playroom downstairs… or if we’re lucky, in our office like digital design and strategy firm Handsome. The Omsk, Russia-based group had recently added a foosball table to their break room, which to no surprise, became a regular hangout during lunchtime.
When caught up in an intense match, it can sometimes be difficult to remember to update the scoreboard by hand. That’s why, the folks at Handsome decided to automate it with the help of an Android tablet, an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560), some sensors, a pushbutton and a piezo buzzer for sound effects.
The sensors are embedded in each goalie box and responsible for triggering a message to the Arduino. The board then parses this data and sends it over to a custom-built scoring app on the mobile device, which is conveniently positioned at the edge of the table. The result? A simple way to keep tabs on who’s winning while allowing you focus on what really matters: playing!
According to its creators, the project took about a week from start to finish. When all was said and done, though, they now had an incredibly smart foosball table with a scoreboard that automatically registers the goals, a couple of pushbuttons for game mode and score control, and a piezo buzzer to produce sounds. You have to see it in action below, it’s pretty awesome!