Homemade Reactive Archery Target

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A homemade reactive archery target is being developed to light up when hit, using resistive touch screen technology as a basis. The creator seeks advice on converting resistance changes into a signal to activate a lightbulb, while also exploring alternative methods such as capacitance or a grid of switches. Concerns were raised about the durability of these methods due to wear from arrow impacts, leading to a suggestion of using a microphone to detect the sound of hits instead. The idea of disposable printed circuits was proposed, along with the simplicity of using a microphone or movement detector for scoring. The target will count any hit within a specified diameter as a score.
Liza Sarychev
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Hello,
I'm making a homemade archery target that will flash a light every time the target has been pierced. I'm thinking of using the idea behind resistive touch screen technology. So every time the arrow pierces a resistive layer would contact a conductive layer and increase the resistance of the circuit.

My problem is: how do I take that increase in resistance and use it as a signal to turn on a lightbulb.

I am not an EE, and have VERY limited knowledge, so thank you for helping and being patient.

Also, is there another way to solve this problem of turning a light on every time the target is hit, perhaps with capacitance? Maybe use a grid of switches that once hit and ruptured could trigger a capacitor to flash a lightbulb?
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Welcome to PF.

The problem with most of those ideas you suggest is that they would degrade with time as more and more arrow holes puncture it. My suggestion would be a cheap microphone to pick up the sound. A little metal shield in front of the mike would protect it from being pierced by an arrow.

Others on this forum are much better than I at circuit design, so I won't propose a circuit myself.

Good luck. That sounds like a fun project.
 
anorlunda said:
Welcome to PF.

The problem with most of those ideas you suggest is that they would degrade with time as more and more arrow holes puncture it. My suggestion would be a cheap microphone to pick up the sound. A little metal shield in front of the mike would protect it from being pierced by an arrow.

Others on this forum are much better than I at circuit design, so I won't propose a circuit myself.

Good luck. That sounds like a fun project.

Hi anorlunda, thanks for your input!

The idea would be to print circuits on paper that would be disposable and plug them into a control unit.
 
A microphone or vibration / movement detector behind the target is probably the simplest solution.
Is any hit a score or do you want different scores for different distances from the centre.
 
Baluncore said:
A microphone or vibration / movement detector behind the target is probably the simplest solution.
Is any hit a score or do you want different scores for different distances from the centre.

Hi Baluncore,
Any hit that's on target is a score. The target can be anywhere from 2 in in diameter to 6 inches or even more.
 

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