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Raspberry Pi-powered Left 4 Dead 2 Stat Tracker
Description
I am an avid gamer, and Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) is one of my favorite video games. I put my interest in video games to good use and started a personal project to make a L4D2 stat tracker. The stat tracker is a physical trophy that keeps track of how many zombies you’ve killed in L4D2 so you can show off your zombie-killing skills to your friends. Powered by a Raspberry Pi 3, it uses a Python script to automatically grab stats from your Steam Profile Page over WiFi and display them on an LCD.
I also used this project to learn about creating, editing, and publishing videos to YouTube, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite hobbies. Here is a video summarizing what the Stat Tracker is, how it works, and how I made it.
I created a project page on Hackaday.io to document the project, and I published the Python script that drives the stat tracker on GitHub. This project was also featured in a Hackaday.com article!
Project Takeaways
This project allowed me to gain technical experience in the following areas:
- Programming Python scripts to interface with web pages while simultaneously interfacing with physical hardware
- Finding and utilizing Python libraries to carry out specific tasks (web scraping, LCD driving)
- HD44780 LCD interface signaling and timing specifications
- 3D modeling with exact component dimensions
- 3D printing
- Prototyping
These are some non-engineering related aspects I also gained experience in:
- Video filming and editing
- Video codecs, containers, compression algorithms, and bitrates
- Promoting projects and products through social media
Most importantly, this project helped me discover an exciting new hobby: working on cool technical projects and making YouTube videos about them!
Details
All the details for this project, including the BOM, wiring diagrams, and build instructions, are located on my Hackaday project page. Please check it out!