Snooker/Pool Scorer help needed...

I need some initial ideas for an electronics project I am doing. I want to design a snooker (or pool) automatic scorer, that will recognise the colours potted and add them together. I need help with the colour recognition part of the project. I know there are plenty of 'off the shelf' items out there but I'd like to design and build my own.
Any help on this, or other advice on the project as a whole would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

insttechbazza said:

I need some initial ideas for an electronics project I am doing. I want to design a snooker (or pool) automatic scorer, that will recognise the colours potted and add them together. I need help with the colour recognition part of the project. I know there are plenty of 'off the shelf' items out there but I'd like to design and build my own.
Any help on this, or other advice on the project as a whole would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

The only problem is recognising the colours, I should worry about that first, you could try either cameras or optosensors with different colour LED's switched in order. Bear in mind you will need SIX of these for a snooker table!.

The rest is fairly straight forward computer stuff, probably easiest to use one or more micro-controllers for it?.

The current issue of Silicon Chip features a PICAXE colour sensor. You would need to subscribe if you're not in Australia or New Zealand though...
might help.

kazakhan said:

The current issue of Silicon Chip features a PICAXE colour sensor. You would need to subscribe if you're not in Australia or New Zealand though...

Click to expand...

Revolution education who are the picaxe mob have the same colour sensor that sily chip has put out this month on their front webpage I'd check that out before payin any money to sillychip.

Just a Thought Bryan

Would'nt it be something along the lines of having a high brightness green LED, which will shine a spot of light onto the ball, and a Cds cell in a light pipe focussed onto where that spot will appear on the balls surface. If the ball were green, it would reflect only a small amount of the light as it would absorb most of it. If the ball were yellow however, it should reflect more light, which should in turn lower the resistance of the Cds further. I will say this though, it would be VERY difficult to set up in any reliable way, and if the balls have numbers on them, thats sure to cause problems (can't remember if they do). Never really thought of it, but electronics seem to have difficulty recognising colours.

Typical, after I posted I followed the links in the article and realised that and you beat me to it