An IoT solution you didn’t know you needed

What is Cornhole?

Cornhole, also known as baggo, is a now popular lawn game that originated in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. It was slightly different in the very beginning; there were different sized bags and holes, but the concept was mostly the same. Picture horseshoe, but with bean bags and a board with a hole instead of a post, and you can get points for landing a bag on the board or getting a bag through the hole. Players take turns tossing bean bags, typically in teams of 1-2 with 4 bags per team. Rules can vary, but usually the goal is to get to 21 points first. Either way, it’s a great game, there’s even a play called a cornucopia (when all bags make it into the hole in one frame) - how fun! And it’s a great excuse to get outside, play, bond, drink, compete, etc.

On top of all that, cornhole is an excellent candidate for an IoT solution

…and to implement a Raspberry Pi, some data-warehousing practice, and data science!

Why Cornhole?

There is an issue plaguing players across the cornhole nation. They are suffering because they can’t keep score! They’re too drunk! The mental math doesn’t mix with beer, bbq, and good times - it’s like oil and water! Look at the photo above for a second: there’s cornhole of course, there’s beer, there’s a barbeque, but what the heck is that in the background??

How did they not notice the man dressed as an ear of corn in the bushes??? This is why cornhole needs a smart solution with automatic score keeping, a user friendly design, and one more excuse to play a ton of cornhole.

The Original Proposal

Smart point detection using IoT devices and a Raspberry Pi, lights to indicate scoring, a pretty LCD scoreboard, a mobile app, and cloud data storage to help track cornhole metrics like leaderboards, win-loss records, and average points per frame and other personal records. For those unfamiliar, a Raspberry Pi (in the image to the right, not the left ::smiley::) is a credit-card-sized computer that can do many of the things your PC can do, including internet browsing, audio/video, playing games, and more. It’s easily programmable for electronics and IoT projects and offers many GPIO (general input/output) pins and coding capabilities in Python, C#, and others.

A Typical IoT Solution Architecture