Tucker Romagnoli
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Cornerstone of Engineering 1 · Northeastern University · Fall 2025

FlashFling Soccer

A tabletop soccer game built for a client: distance-sensing goals, light-strip game clocks, a scoreboard, a speaker and gameplay buttons, all inside a laser-cut plywood box. Our team took it through 4 main iterations, and the client picked it as the best of the 16 games presented.

My role
Project manager. I led the code, the box design, the circuits and the game mechanics.
Team
4 engineering students
When
Oct – Dec 2025
Shown at
Northeastern's Engineering EXPO
Inside
Microcontroller, ultrasonic distance sensors, LED strips, buttons, speaker, 3D-printed pieces
The finished FlashFling Soccer board on a table at the EXPO: a green checkered field, red and blue player pieces, net goals at each end, red dice, and a printed rulebook in front
Final presentation at Northeastern's Engineering EXPO, Dec 2025.
Best of 16Picked by the client from the 16 games presented
4 iterationsMain design rounds, from cardboard to plywood
Team of 4I was project manager

How it came together

  1. Start with the client

    Consulted the client and brainstormed a first prototype, which used a keyboard matrix to detect player positions.

    Scrapped: lots of material and time for very little gain.
    Whiteboard sketch of the board layout with a grid of squares and dimension notes
    First brainstorm, Oct 2025.
    Cardboard prototype with jumper wires and a chip forming a keyboard matrix
    Keyboard-matrix prototype.
    Early cardboard test board with switch legs poking through and a microcontroller on a USB cable
    Where the matrix started.

  2. Wire it up

    Assembled the circuit using soldering and breadboards to control the lights, buttons, speaker and distance sensors.

    Both halves of the open plywood box packed with breadboards and jumper wires, with colored buttons along the front edge
    First full integration of the circuits into the board: distance-sensing goals, time-clock light strips, a scoreboard, speaker and gameplay buttons, using a mix of soldering and breadboards.

  3. Design the box

    Designed a board box in AutoCAD to fit the circuitry and display the side-board components, then laser cut it out of plywood.

    AutoCAD drawing of a box net with magenta dimension lines
    AutoCAD outline drawing of the main box panels, one with a row of button holes

    The final AutoCAD drawings used to laser cut the goal extension and the main box structure.

  4. Program the game

    Programmed the full game flow along with the LED strips and distance-sensor functions, resulting in a refined final product ready for presentation.

    The assembled game board on a workbench, with blue and red end zones, net goals and a row of buttons on the side
    Assembled the night before the EXPO.