One of our fave makers, Wayne from Devscover, got a bit sick of losing at Scrabble (and his girlfriend was likely raging at being stuck in lockdown with a lesser opponent). So he came up with a Raspberry Pi–powered solution!
Using a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera and a bit of Python, you can quickly figure out the highest-scoring word your available Scrabble tiles allow you to play.
Hardware
- Raspberry Pi 3B
- Compatible touchscreen
- Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera
- Power supply for the touchscreen and Raspberry Pi
- Scrabble board
You don’t have to use a Raspberry Pi 3B, but you do need a model that has both display and camera ports. Wayne also chose to use an official Raspberry Pi Touch Display because it can power the computer, but any screen that can talk to your Raspberry Pi should be fine.
Software
Firstly, the build takes a photo of your Scrabble tiles using raspistill.
Next, a Python script processes the image of your tiles and then relays the highest-scoring word you can play to your touchscreen.
The key bit of code here is twl, a Python script that contains every possible word you can play in Scrabble.
From 4.00 minutes into his build video, Wayne walks you through what each bit of code does and how he made it work for this project, including how he installed and used the Scrabble dictionary.
Fellow Scrabble-strugglers have suggested sneaky upgrades in the comments of Wayne’s YouTube video, such having the build relay answers to a more discreet smart watch.
No word yet on how the setup deals with the blank Scrabble tiles; those things are like gold dust.
In case you haven’t met the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera yet, Wayne also did this brilliant unboxing and tutorial video for our newest piece of hardware.
And for more projects from Devscover, check out this great Amazon price tracker using a Raspberry Pi Zero W, and make sure to subscribe to the channel for more content.
Website: LINK
