From Classroom Daydream to Digital Board Game

By Ana Stanisavljevic

4/23/26 Student Experience 7 min read

Lessons learned from building a physical-digital Settlers of Catan board in a single semester.

Traditional Settlers of Catan board game setup — From Classroom Daydream to Digital Board Game

I was sitting in an ECE elective during spring semester from studying abroad in Dublin, and like any students returning from abroad, I was deep in the post-travel slump. As the professor talked about something I’m sure was important, my mind was elsewhere: specifically, on the ranked one-on-one Settlers of Catan game I’d rather be playing.

Growing up, I’d always been drawn to video games, and during my time abroad, I filled the gaps between travels with an embarrassing amount of ranked Catan. Sitting in that classroom, I had a thought that would consume the next four months of my life: I was taking this as a free elective, but what if instead of sitting here, I could turn my Catan obsession into an independent study and build something I actually cared about?

Online Settlers of Catan game — *The online ranked 1v1 Catan interface that consumed my time abroad—a fully digital version showing player avatars, the game board, and resource tracking.*

That’s how I ended up spending a semester building a physical Settlers of Catan board that tracks the entire game state digitally. Every settlement, every road, every resource card exists simultaneously in both worlds. The concept was straightforward: About 60 hall effect sensors positioned at every intersection detect magnets embedded in the game pieces. When you place a settlement on the physical board, the corresponding sensor triggers and updates the Python/Pygame interface displayed on a monitor. For resources, I implemented RFID cards as ”credit cards” for each of the four players—tap your card on the reader, and the digital system handles all your sheep, wheat and ore without any physical resource cards.

The execution, however, was decidedly not straightforward.

I reached out to several professors with my admittedly ambitious idea, and John Board, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, agreed to supervise it. With his support and guidance from Duke’s Innovation Co-Lab Manager Chris Bingham, I started what would become my first real hardware project since building a bird feeder in EGR 101.

I began with the woodworking, which felt appropriate given my extensive experience of…having built one bird feeder. Using CAD software (drawing on skills from high school VEX Robotics), I designed all the hexagonal tiles, the frame and the mounting points for what would eventually become an absolute rat’s nest of wiring underneath. Chris taught me how to use the laser cutter in the Innovation Co-Lab to cut the wood and acrylic pieces, helped me refine my CAD designs so everything was actually uniform and pretty, and showed me how to use acrylic glue. I’d never used any of these tools before, and having someone invested in helping me figure it out made all the difference. He even offered to help me create custom sleeves for the RFID cards.

Wiring underneath the Settlers of Catan board — The underside of the board revealing the reality of a first-time hardware project; a dense web of colored jumper wires connecting 60 hall effect sensors to multiplexers and the Arduino Mega. Wire management: a lesson learned the hard way.

For the electronics, I initially tried using a Raspberry Pi 2 before realizing an Arduino Mega would work just fine and simplified my power management issues considerably. Getting enough current to run 60 sensors plus multiple RFID readers became one of my biggest technical headaches. At one point, Professor Board, Chris and another professor spent an afternoon with me whiteboarding solutions in one of the Innovation Co-Lab rooms. It was surreal! Three people genuinely invested in solving problems for a class that had exactly one student: me. That’s the kind of thing that makes Duke special.

The way the system works is elegant in theory: Each intersection on the board has a unique vertex number and location. When you place a settlement with a magnet embedded in it, the Hall effect sensor at that vertex detects the magnetic field and sends a signal to the Arduino. The code then knows exactly which vertex was triggered and updates the digital display accordingly. For the dice rolls, players press a button on the board that randomizes a number in the code, which then displays on LEDs built into the board itself— no physical dice needed.

The wiring underneath the board tells the story of that learning curve—a chaotic rainbow of jumper wires connecting sensors to multiplexers to the Arduino.
Ana Stanisavljevic Senior ECE and Computer Science Major

Professor Board gave me weekly check-ins throughout the semester and would come help whenever I needed it. Having that consistent support kept me on track when I was deep in the weeds of hardware-software integration, trying to get sensors and software to communicate for the first time.

The real marathon came at the end of the semester. I’d been working on the project throughout the term, but I wanted to see it fully functional before leaving for break. So, I set up camp in the basement soldering lab in Hudson Hall and just… stayed there. Twenty-two hours straight. I survived on coffee after coffee and late-night McDonald’s runs, taking occasional 30-minute power naps slumped in the small chair outside the lab entrance.

I wasn’t alone in my suffering—ECE 350 students were also pulling their routine 10:00 PM-2:00 AM shifts working on their projects. There’s a certain camaraderie that develops when you’re all collectively losing your minds in the Hudson basement at two in the morning.

Bank and trade interface — *The Bank and Trade interface where players tap their RFID cards to manage resources digitally. The system eliminates all physical resource cards, handling transactions through the onscreen menu.*

Finished physical board of Settlers of Catan game — *The Bank and Trade interface where players tap their RFID cards to manage resources digitally. The system eliminates all physical resource cards, handling transactions through the onscreen menu.*

I learned to solder during this project, which means my first few sensors probably look terrible under close inspection. But by sensor 60, I’d gotten pretty decent at it. The wiring underneath the board tells the story of that learning curve—a chaotic rainbow of jumper wires connecting sensors to multiplexers to the Arduino. If I were to redo this project, wire management would be priority number one. Lesson learned.

The presentation to Professor Board went smoothly. Everything actually worked, which honestly felt like a minor miracle. But the first real game happened after that, when I invited friends over to play on the finished board. Watching them place settlements on the physical board and seeing the digital display update in real-time, watching them tap their RFID cards to access the bank and trade resources: It felt pretty good. One friend kept saying ”this is so cool” every time they used their card, which never got old.

As a double major in electrical and computer engineering and computer science graduating in May 2026, this independent study crystallized something I already suspected: I love taking things that exist purely as software and giving them physical presence in the world. There’s something satisfying about creating an experience that engages multiple senses and brings people together around a table.

Next semester, I’m thinking about reaching out to Catan’s parent company about potential partnerships, or possibly looking into patenting aspects of the design. Even if that doesn’t pan out, I’m already mentally designing v2.0: cleaner wiring (obviously), maybe some LED indicators for resource production, possibly automatic dice rolling that’s more sophisticated than a button press.

For now, the board sits in my apartment, ready for game night. And unlike that ECE elective I was daydreaming through, every hour I spent building it (even hour 22 in the Hudson basement) was exactly where I wanted to be.

Ana Stanisavljevic is a senior double majoring in electrical and computer engineering and computer science.

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