Use a Raspberry Pi and a Pi Camera Module to build your own machine learning–powered rock paper scissors game!

Rock-Paper-Scissors game using computer vision and machine learning on Raspberry Pi A Rock-Paper-Scissors game using computer vision and machine learning on the Raspberry Pi. Project GitHub page: https://github.com/DrGFreeman/rps-cv PROJECT ORIGIN: This project results from a challenge my son gave me when I was teaching him the basics of computer programming making a simple text based Rock-Paper-Scissors game in Python.

Virtual rock paper scissors

Here’s why you should always leave comments on our blog: this project from Julien de la Bruère-Terreault instantly had our attention when he shared it on our recent Android Things post.

Julien and his son were building a text-based version of rock paper scissors in Python when his son asked him: “Could you make a rock paper scissors game that uses the camera to detect hand gestures?” Obviously, Julien really had no choice but to accept the challenge.

“The game uses a Raspberry Pi computer and Raspberry Pi Camera Module installed on a 3D-printed support with LED strips to achieve consistent images,” Julien explains in the tutorial for the build. “The pictures taken by the camera are processed and fed to an image classifier that determines whether the gesture corresponds to ‘Rock’, ‘Paper’, or ‘Scissors’ gestures.”

How does it work?

Physically, the build uses a Pi 3 Model B and a Camera Module V2 alongside 3D-printed parts. The parts are all green, since a consistent colour allows easy subtraction of background from the captured images. You can download the files for the setup from Thingiverse.

To illustrate how the software works, Julien has created a rather delightful pipeline demonstrating where computer vision and machine learning come in.

The way the software works means the game doesn’t need to be limited to the standard three hand signs. If you wanted to, you could add other signs such as ‘lizard’ and ‘Spock’! Or ‘fire’ and ‘water balloon’. Or any other alterations made to the game in your pop culture favourites.

Check out Julien’s full tutorial to build your own AI-powered rock paper scissors game here on Julien’s GitHub. Massive kudos to Julien for spending a year learning the skills required to make it happen. And a massive thank you to Julien’s son for inspiring him! This is why it’s great to do coding and digital making with kids — they have the best project ideas!

Sharing is caring

If you’ve built your own project using Raspberry Pi, please share it with us in the comments below, or via social media. As you can tell from today’s blog post, we love to see them and share them with the whole community!