Moving tokens
Magnets on motorized GT2 belts under the board slide each token to its square, driven by an Arduino with stepper motors.
Why we built it
Picture a grandmother whose family lives far away. The phone rings, everyone says hi, catches up for a minute, and says bye. The call worked, but she still missed spending an evening with them.
We wanted remote family members to feel present through something they do together. Grandma keeps the real board, real dice, and printed cards. Everyone else joins from a link on their phone, and every move lands on the same physical board.
From “Hi, bye” to “One more round?”The feeling we designed for
See it in action
The board laptop switches between a flat storybook map and a 3D world that follows whoever’s turn it is.
How it works
One laptop beside the board runs the game server, the motors, the overhead camera, and the narrator.
Real dice and cards
An overhead camera reads the dice once they settle and matches ArUco markers on printed cards to the right card action.
The Magic Mirror
Narrates every turn in fairy tale style and listens for spoken choices like “I’ll take it” when you land on a property.
Remote players
Family members scan a QR code or open a link to join. Their moves reach the same game and the physical board in real time.
A fair rules engine
The engine tracks turns, money, rent, cards, and bankruptcy. Voice is only an input, so the Mirror can never waive rent or skip a turn.
The board
Every property is a storybook location, from the Gingerbread House to Rapunzel’s Tower.
Built with
A Python game server talks to every screen, the camera, the motors, and the voice pipeline.
- Python
- FastAPI
- WebSockets
- JavaScript
- Three.js
- SQLite
- OpenCV and ArUco
- Arduino
- Meta Muse Spark
- Muse Voice Transcribe
- ElevenLabs
The team
Built in a weekend at HackTX 2026.
Tanvi MuppalaInterface design, board and lobby pages, and the fairy tale theme
Avish ParekhGame server, motor control, and demo mode
Nihal NeerukondaComputer vision for dice and cards, and the board camera
Shivanshi DasVoice decisions and in person and remote play
Play it yourself
The game runs a live Python server, so it plays on your own computer. Simulation mode needs no board, motors, or camera.
With Python 3.10 or newer installed, run these commands and open http://localhost:8000 to create a game.
git clone https://github.com/muppt11/magic-monopoly.git cd magic-monopoly python3 -m venv .venv source .venv/bin/activate pip install -r requirements.txt python -m server.main --sim