Inspired by his time as a scorekeeper in elementary school, now-high schooler Collin Wentzien wanted to recreate this setup by building a DIY scoreboard several years ago. His idea involved making a bright display composed of several seven-segment displays that could all be controlled by an external device in order to set scores, start/stop the clock, and more.
The controller sits inside of a small custom box that contains a pair of button matrices, which either increment the score for the home/guest team or provides a keypad that can be used to enter numerical values and set the clock. Below its custom PCB is an Arduino Mega 2560 that handles all of the button inputs, along with a character LCD for showing what has been entered and an nRF24L01+ wireless transceiver for sending new data to the scoreboard.
Originally, Wentzien had planned on using hundreds of individual LEDs, but due to the resulting wiring complexity, instead opted for a single string of WS2812B LEDs which were not only cheaper, but also allowed for fun animations and colors. Similar to the controller, the scoreboard houses an Arduino Uno as well as an nRF24L01+ in order to receive the commands. Best of all, the it even features a loud horn that can be used to signal the start and end of each quarter.
To see how Wentzien built this highly interactive project, you can read his write-up here on Hackster.io or watch his video below!
