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Card-playing robot has Raspberry Pi brain and 3D printed arm
Some Raspberry Pi projects are just too interesting to scroll past and this is definitely one of those projects. Maker and developer Dominic LeBeouf has created a really cool Pi-powered robot that works really hard at something us humans consider play. LeBoeuf has developed a card playing robot entirely from scratch complete with a custom body and a program he wrote to play card games.
All good projects have an inspiring moment and LeBoeuf's springboard idea was in the form of a video put together by another maker showcasing their card playing robot—this one played UNO with a little help from AI. LeBoeuf explained, however, that he likes to make his projects more accessible to the maker community on his channel and opted to drop the AI for something a little more predictable.
The end result is this awesome 3D printed robot he's affectionately named Cardi. Cardi has a custom body that consists of the arm and a few trays for sorting cards while the game progresses. You can definitely get crazy with AI when it comes to creating a robot that plays games but there are some card games that you can program with a simple set of instructions. In this case, LeBoeuf has taught Cardi how to play a card game known as Skat.
The main board driving this project is a Raspberry Pi. It's connected to a series of servos that help operate the 3D printed arm. It picks up cards using a small vacuum pump with a little suction cup attachment on the end. To read the cards, it uses an RFID module to scan wireless tags LeBeouf stuck to each card.
Unfortunately, we don't have a link to the source code so we're not entirely sure how it's put together. However, LeBoeuf did all of the heavy lifting and shared a great deal about the project and how it was developed over at his official YouTube channel. There you can also see Cardi in action as it sorts through a game of Skat.
If you'd like to get a closer look, you can check it out over at YouTube.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
