Star Wars - Porg Shooting Stand

What started as a simple Nerf Gun shooting range has now evolved into a fully electronic system. The project has gone through quite a few revisions along the way.

The first version featured manually adjustable satellites and individual wiring. Today’s version consists of three main components:

• The E-11 Blaster, powered by a battery and communicating via ESP-Now with the control case.

• The control case, which functions as the central unit responsible for starting and stopping the game.

• And finally, the Porgs themselves, which automatically calibrate the lighting setup.

Several ESP32 microcontrollers and various sensors are integrated throughout the system. The E-11 blaster emits a short laser pulse when the trigger is pulled. Every component was custom-built, except for the Porg models, which were downloaded as free STL files from the internet.

Unfortunately, the Porgs suffered damage in the summer of 2023 after being left exposed to direct sunlight for several days — parts of them melted, and some sections of the setup even liquefied and spread across the floor. A rather practical lesson in material behavior under heat.

The entire project was created for the non-profit organization Star Wars Fans Hannover – “The Northern Outpost” e.V.. It is not for sale, and only the individual hardware components were reimbursed.