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High-Tech Foosball Mod Project
JakeBullet writes: "Project:
Take a standard foosball table and make it a little bit smarter. 1. The table should be aware of who's playing, the score and the status of the game. 2. Take the data from the game and use it to create a stats engine and player ranking system. 3. Project all relevant information about gameplay onto a flat screen. 4. Spend under $50.
It's useful to do this sort of thing for practise in finding technological solutions.
I'm sure even for people who knew a lot, there was something to learn here.
Nah. When you spin, you lose a lot of control. I've always found that players may start out spinning, but once they've played a few games they stop. You can get a HELL of a shot from a normal flick of the wrist, plus then you're ready to immediately stuff a rebound coming back from your shot. If you spin, you lose contact with the handle and thus you lose control and reaction.
Any system tied to SSN is pretty scary -- even with an MD5 hash the SSN is recoverable due to the small 'keyspace'. Comments?
What if an incentive system were installed, instead? Considering that most foosball tables are found where drinking is involved, what if a nice, cold beer were dispensed to the player who scores each goal?
I figure things would get interesting as the player who took an early lead slows his reaction times due to alcohol, thus leveling the playing field.
...or would you complain to someone who said they'd spent $50 modding their computer, because they'd actually spent more money on actually buying the computer in the first place?
Actually, since this is a foosball mod, I'd say that you could assume you already had the foosball table. Most foosball fanatics have a foosball player, just as most PC modders have a PC. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that most foosball fanatics have a spare plasma flat-panel sitting in the corner of their basement...
If I said you could mod a 486 into an Itanium monster for only $15 by:
1. Using a spare processor, power supply, motherboard, AGP video adaptor, ATA hard drive, etc.
2. Spending $15 on a ribbon cable to connect the hard drive to the motherboard, since you don't happen to have one of those handy.
Would you call that a real $15 upgrade?
Even if we all have PCs lying around the house, chances are we already have those PCs doing something else they are massive overkill. Sure, I can spare an old pentium, but then I'd lose my router...
At the old office we used to have a pretty nice table (ah, the dotcom days).
There was a "move" I was fond of, the squeezer. You just kinda pinch the ball between the player and the table, and then you just cranked hard. The ball just shot out, and the forward spin on it was incredible. Many a time you would score a goal after the ball hit the goalie/defender, and just spun right around him to the side, and into the goal.
The point being: I'd consider that an "advanced" shot, but it bends the hell out of the bars. Would you allow that?
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty