About Raspberry Pi

A Raspberry Pi is a series of small, inexpensive, single-board computers featuring multiple USB ports, an Ethernet network connection, and HDMI video output. Tournament Manager display and field control software can be run on certain Raspberry Pi models, enabling low-cost displays and simplifying competition cabling.

Installing and configuring Tournament Manager on a Raspberry Pi is an advanced topic. Please ensure you are comfortable with all of the concepts described in the Tournament Manager on the Raspberry Pi section of the VEX TM Software User Guide and the article Tournament Manager Installation Instructions for Raspberry Pi before attempting to use this feature at a tournament.

Requirements

Tip: The Raspberry Pi product is just a bare circuit board. However, most vendors sell bundles that include a case, power supply, microSD card, and HDMI cable. It is recommended that you purchase one of these kits for convenience. Popular kit brands that have been used are CanaKit , Vilros, and LoveRPi . All of these are available on Amazon.com at the time of this writing (search for "Raspberry Pi kit" ). Some kits contain more equipment than others - make sure your kit contains everything below or you purchase
the additional parts separately.

  • A Raspberry Pi 3b, 3b+, 4b, or 5 with case and 2.5A power supply (Raspberry Pi 2, 1, Zero, model A, etc. are not supported)
  • A microSD card of at least 2GB in size (note: the SD card will be completely erased so ensure there is nothing on it that you wish to save)
  • A display device (TV, computer monitor, or projector) which will be connected to the Raspberry Pi; the device must include an HDMI input and must support 1080P (1920x1080) resolution.
  • A copy of the Tournament Manager Raspberry Pi software image which can be downloaded from the Tournament Manager website at https://vextm.dwabtech.com
  • A computer and associated software necessary to copy a disk image to the Raspberry Pi SD card (see https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/ for guides for Windows, macOS, and Linux)
  • The most recent version of Tournament Manager running on a PC
  • An Ethernet network connected to the Raspberry Pi and Tournament Manager PC that includes a DHCP server
  • (Optional) VEXnet Field Control equipment

Notes on Raspberry Pi 2

As of the 2024/2025 season, Raspberry Pi 2s are no longer supported for use with Tournament Manager.