IR Lasertag with Raspberry Pi 3 and Nerf

The Idea

This tutorial explains how to put together the gun and the already working Raspberry Pi 3. Another tutorial explains how to program the Raspberry Pi 3 as an IR gun.

Click this link to download the full project image here. Download and setup in an SD card. Make sure to prepare the SD card with a tool like SDFormatter. I always enjoyed playing lasertag, but it is expensive to play all day with your friends. It is also limited in what it can do and of course we don't have a way to hack it, or do we?

After I started playing with Raspberry Pi 3, I realized what potential this little computer has. It has WiFi, Bluetooth, GPIOs and an way to easily program using Python. I also researched and found out about LIRC (Linux Infra Red Communication) already being part of Raspbian. All I had to do is download and install the software, which is very simple.

All the elements I need for a working IR gun are here. All I had to do is put it together, which is what a hackster does.

The Videos

Sniper Rifle with the Raspberry Pi 3 and some parts that I found at my local Amvets.

Below is the sniper rifle lasertag gun all complete.

This next series of 3 videos show and explain how I worked and got my first gun working properly.

The Information

Here are the links I used to find the information I needed for this project:

• Hakcster.io how to setup LIRC for infrared communication

• Another page to setup LIRC

• List of project pins to use

• Missing socket troubleshooting page

• This is the FULL LASERTAG image to burn to an SD card for Raspberry pi 3

This is the diagram to display how to make your own IR LED output for the gun. This works well; you don't need R2. It is very straightforward, R1 = 220 ohm, Q1=N22222.

This is the second gun all finished and tested with actual working lasertag guns from Hasbro.

Here is the next gun with the same software. Some hardware improvements have been done. Example: I am using a mouse for the switches, it works out better with Clickteam fusion. It is the simplest solution I could find, and it works like wonders.

Here are the insides of the gun just before I start taking the gun apart.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL LASERTAG IMAGE FILE.