Playing a game of laser tag at home has become a reality thanks to some clever Raspberry Pi and Arduino setups in the past, and it’s been taken a step further by replacing the players with RC tanks.

Inspired by the game War Thunder, user “Arduino Guy” programmed much more into the set of rules than a simple “tag, you’re out” match.

Each tank has four sensors around the body. These sensors relate to crew members and shooting three of them wins you the game. There’s a commander, driver, gunner, and machine gunner to aim for.

While the gunner and driver can be replaced should they be shot, it will occur penalties. Losing the gunner means your tank can’t shoot for six seconds and reload times increase, and a dead driver means a slower tank.

Both tanks are based off of the miniQ robot chassis from DFRobot, who sponsored the project. On top of this is a combination of 3D printed parts and milled wood panels to create the required look.

A small screen and two joysticks are used in the controllers. We assume one stick is used for movement and the other for the turret, with the screen letting you know how many crew members are left.

These controllers here each house an Arduino Nano with the tanks themselves using Raspberry Pi Zero Ws, and Bluetooth being used to communicate between the two.

You will, of course, need a lot more components than just that. To see the rest you can find a short guide over on Hackster.io and a three-part video series documenting the build process is embedded below.