Arduino Laser Tag Project Rejects

This article was written by James G, one of the students in the Arduino Course for Absolute Beginners:

Often we share some of our finished (or somewhat finished) projects. But this is often only a small part of a bigger story.

The whole story is a journey of countless trial and error in design and function.

I wanted to share one of my old and existing projects with my fellow “Makers/Developers”.  

Here are several pictures showing my slow and somewhat bizarre development of a Laser Tag Grenade.

The first card was a simple proof of concept, that could I program and send IR code to the gun.
simple proof of concept

The second card was an expanded version of the first, a piezo buzzer and push button added.

img_0292

In the third version it was time for some practical application and field use. It was decided a simple passive infrared sensor (PIR aka motion detector) would work just fine for the trigger.

The device is encased in an off-the-shelf storage box. This actually had some good feedback. It was used to keep players from restricted areas.

Arduino Laser Tga Grenade, practical application and field use

The following photos show the progress toward a throwable device.

img_0295img_0296 Arduino Laser Tag throwable grenades

The first two are actual christmas snow globes found in a craft store.  The mirror was added to help reflect the IR.  The second was actually very successful, but still needs work.

The third comes from my new 3d printer, it looks great, but concerns about durability and striking someone my cause injury.

Through lots of feedback from players a final design was made and field tested.
Disclaimer: A similar device is already on the market.

As you can see – it was a long and strange trip to get from the beginning to the end – it’s that hidden story of iterative development that hides behind a finished, shiny masterpiece.

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