Raspberry Pi RP2040 keeps track of who's winning and losing with this wireless LED scoreboard

Raspberry Pi
(Image credit: Mike Tan)

Some of the best Raspberry Pi projects are the ones that are flexible in a variety of situations — and even better are the ones made for gaming. Today we've got a project to share, created by maker and developer Mike Tan, that tackles both of these. This RP2040-powered wireless scoreboard helps you keep score for all sorts of games.

The scoreboard was originally created by Tan as a way to keep track of scores for Drone Soccer matches. However, this type of scoreboard will work just as well for any game in which you need to tally two teams' scores up to a maximum of 99. It works wirelessly thanks to a handheld remote.

The scores are represented using individually addressable LEDs arranged in the form of four seven-segment displays. These are controlled using a Raspberry Pi Pico that receives input using a 433MHz receiver. This enables the wireless remote to operate the scoreboard in real time.

As we've already mentioned, the main board driving this project is a Raspberry Pi RP240-based board. However, it's not working alone. Tan is also using an Arduino Uno R3 and an RF 433MHz handheld remote, along with a couple of transmitter/receiver modules. The LED numbers are made using sections of 5V WS2812B strips cut to scale and soldered carefully into place for a total of 169 LEDs.

A detailed breakdown of the project is available at Hackster, as well as a closer look at the source code used in its creations. We can confirm it uses Arduino IDE, rather than other popular options like MicroPython, CircuitPython or C. If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project in action, you can check it out over on YouTube. Be sure to follow Tan for more cool projects as well as any future updates to this one.

Ash Hill
Contributing Writer

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.