Digital Foosball Offers Open Source Awesomeness

Foosball tables, that ever-present staple of dot-com startups, YMCA rec rooms and your parents’ basement, have long been in need of a digital upgrade. Now, a German interactive firm has devised a way for you to spruce up the play behind those miniature plastic soccer players. Associates at SinnerSchrader have posted a helpful how-to guide […]

Foosball tables, that ever-present staple of dot-com startups, YMCA rec rooms and your parents' basement, have long been in need of a digital upgrade. Now, a German interactive firm has devised a way for you to spruce up the play behind those miniature plastic soccer players.

Associates at SinnerSchrader have posted a helpful how-to guide that allows foosball owners to hack their tables with an Arduino processor and some open source code. The end result is photo sensors that detect when the ball crosses the goal line and scores that are relayed in real time to your mobile device. Scoring updates with your opponent can also be configured to post on Twitter.

Material costs will run you about $200, give or take. For their prototype, SinnerSchrader engineers used an Arduino Uno microcontroller board to run the operation, with an Arduino WiFly Shield that gives your board 802.11g/g wireless connectivity. And those photosensors on each goal line are like the ones designed for model-railroad setups.

Throw in a bit of engineering know-how and you can have your own cloud-connected, digitally enhanced foosball table that will even keep track of your office standings online.

Unfortunately, the actual detailed instructions on how to complete all the steps haven't yet been posted, but SinnerSchrader claims they have a proof-of-concept prototype that works, and that the blueprint and software will be available for download soon.

Until then, you've got time to gather up your necessary materials and carve some space out of the workday to devote to this bit of hackery. Lost productivity awaits!