A complete laser tag scoring system for the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express that detects Nerf LaserOps IR signals and provides real-time visual score tracking.
- Adafruit Circuit Playground Express
- maybe a cable, battery, or 3D printed case for it.
This system detects IR signals from Nerf LaserOps series blasters:
- Nerf LaserOps Pro AlphaPoint
- Nerf LaserOps Pro DeltaBurst
- Other LaserOps compatible blasters
Install these libraries through the Arduino IDE Library Manager:
IRLib2 by Chris Young (you may need to download this directly from github)
├── IRLibDecodeBase
├── IRLib_HashRaw
├── IRLibCombo
└── IRLibRecv
Adafruit NeoPixel by Adafruit
Note: This project uses IRLib2 for IR detection instead of the Circuit Playground library to avoid conflicts and ensure reliable Nerf LaserOps signal detection.
- Install the Arduino IDE
- Add Adafruit SAMD board support via Board Manager
- Install required libraries (listed above)
- Select "Adafruit Circuit Playground Express" as your board
- Upload the code to your Circuit Playground Express
LED Pattern: Alternating red and blue LEDs flash 6 times around the circle
Red-Blue-Red-Blue-Red-Blue-Red-Blue-Red-Blue (flash)
LED Pattern: White LEDs show selected hit points (1-10 LEDs = 10-100 points)
Controls:
- Right Button: Increment hit points (10→20→30...→100→10)
- Left Button: Confirm selection and start game
LED Display:
- 1 white LED = 10 hit points total (5 each team)
- 2 white LEDs = 20 hit points
- ...
- 10 white LEDs = 100 hit points
Visual Feedback: Two white flashes when starting game
LED Pattern: Proportional team score display
Score Display Logic:
- Red LEDs Show red team score proportion
- Blue LEDs Show blue team score proportion
- Purple LED: Appears when total points aren't evenly divisible (e.g., 11 red, 9 blue = 5 red + 1 purple + 4 blue)
Hit Detection:
- Red Team Hit: All LEDs flash red, red score increases, blue score decreases
- Blue Team Hit: All LEDs flash blue, blue score increases, red score decreases
LED Pattern: Winning team color flashes continuously
Reset: Press Left Button to return to Setup Mode with startup animation
The system detects the following Nerf LaserOps IR hash codes:
RED Team: 0x78653B0E
BLUE Team: 0x2FFEA610
PURPLE: 0x67228B44 (logged but no score effect)Unknown IR patterns are logged to Serial Monitor for debugging.
Connect to Serial Monitor (115200 baud) to see:
- Button press confirmations
- Hit point selection
- IR hit detection with hex codes
- Score updates
- Game state changes
Example output:
Nerf Laser Tag Scoring System Ready
*** RIGHT BUTTON PRESSED - INCREMENTING HITPOINTS ***
New hitpoints: 30
*** LEFT BUTTON PRESSED - STARTING GAME ***
Game started with 30 total hitpoints
RED HIT DETECTED! (Pattern: 0x78653B0E)
Score - Red: 16 Blue: 14
BLUE HIT DETECTED! (Pattern: 0x2FFEA610)
Score - Red: 15 Blue: 15
Uses Circuit Playground Express hardware-specific button handling:
pinMode(CPLAY_LEFTBUTTON, INPUT_PULLDOWN); // Pin 4
pinMode(CPLAY_RIGHTBUTTON, INPUT_PULLDOWN); // Pin 5Optimized for maximum sensitivity:
- IR detection prioritized in main loop
- Minimal LED update interference
- Same timing patterns as proven utility code
- Zero-sum scoring: One team's gain = other team's loss
- Single variable tracking: Only red score tracked, blue = total - red
- Proportional display: LEDs represent percentage of total points
Buttons not responding: Ensure you have a Circuit Playground Express (not Classic) IR not detecting: Check Serial Monitor for unknown pattern codes LEDs not displaying correctly: Verify NeoPixel library installation Compilation errors: Ensure IRLib2 and Adafruit NeoPixel libraries are installed
Feel free to submit issues, fork the repository, and create pull requests for improvements:
- Additional Nerf blaster support
- New game modes
- UI enhancements
- Bug fixes
- Circuit Playground Express - Adafruit
- Nerf LaserOps Pro AlphaPoint - Hasbro
- Nerf LaserOps Pro DeltaBurst - Hasbro