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.

Comments

Spinning

[assaultriflesforfree]

Second post... fantastic. I have a question (poll I guess) for foosball players out there. Spinning or no spinning? Personally, I don't like spinning - especially since it can damage a table - but I've found that depending on where I play, house rules seem to change. What do you think? This leads me to an idea for a neat feature for a high-tech table - a spin detector that doles out appropriate punishment (i.e. not counting points scored from spins, or whatever).

Re:Spinning

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Spinning

[Anonymous Coward]

Any person that has played more than the occasional casual game of foosball knows that spinning is a quick way to lose. The keys to winning are:

• Ball control - By far the most important, as the opponent cannot score if they don't have the ball;
• Shot speed - Important, but not as much as most people think (a well placed angle shot scores the same value point as the burner to that dents the back of the goal);
• Deception - Disguising your shot so that the opponent doesn't see it coming;
• Anticipation - Being able to anticipate the opponent's shot (particularly easy when they are bad at deception);
• Exploiting Weakness - Find a shot in your arsensal that the opponent can't block and you're home free;
• Playing - Like most things in life, the more you do it the better you get at it.

• With spinning, you gain a broken table and a high total in the "L" column (to match the L on your forehead ;-). When I play against "spinners", I know that it's going to be a short, uninteresting game. But watching their frustration when you *always* have the ball is funny. :-)

Re:Spinning

[Gudlyf]

"Well, can you imagine a real life football (soccer, whatever) player spin 2 or 3 times ? I can't ..."

Yeah, and while we're at it, I don't recall ever seeing the forwards connected together with a metal rod, restricting them to left-right movement. Same for the defensemen, too. Therefore, I vote against the foosball players being tethered together like that, because it's not like real life.

Not every table game has to be like real life. You play by the mechanics and rules given to you. What matters is that everyone has fun and nobody else's expense.

Re:Spinning

[GothChip]

I think that once you get better at foosball, you just naturally stop spinning.

I think it's more of a case of when you keep losing, you stop spinning. Then you become a better player.

Re:Spinning

[susano_otter]

I always figured games should be played to the limits of their rules and mechanics. Failing to do so means lost opportunities to improve one's skill, and ultimately leads to an artificial limitation on one's ability.

Some people are uncomfortable with this level of competitiveness, and prefer to play a much more relaxed game. This is fine, of course, though I don't understand it. I always want to characterize it as "having more fun imposing arbitrary restrictions on gameplay, rather than constantly challenging yourself and your opponents to higher levels of performance". Me, I like the challenging bit. Others don't. As long as I don't accidentally end up playing with such a person, or get punished for being more competitive than my opponent, the two of us can coexist peacefully, I think.

Re:Spinning

[susano_otter]

After making a cheap shot, you look up at the opposing team and apologize.

That's funny, after I make a cheap shot, I look at my opponent and expect him to develop a counter for it--delivering a painful demonstration of how weak my cheap shot actually is, and forcing me to improve my own game in response.

If my opponent can't counter it, then I'll just keep using it until they mount an all-out defense against it that I can't penetrate, forcing me to revert to other techniques that my opponent can counter. Then I'll mix it up, alternating between cheap shots and other shots unpredictably. If my opponent is playing in the same way, then it becomes a truly exciting mental contest, rather than a simple memorization and repetition of a single keystroke sequence, or spin shot, or whatever. And this, to me, is much more challenging than imposing an arbitrary rule against "cheap" techniques.

This generally works out for me, and I've yet to find a cheap shot in any game that was any good against an opponent who was more interested in playing than in whining.

Re:Spinning

[pthisis]

I play tournament foosball pretty frequently. One of the very first things you learn is that everyone good has a decent shot; the thing that seperates the tournament-level players from the casual players is their ability to pass the ball and block their opponent's passes. Passing from the 5-bar to the 3-bar is key--you have to be able to execute at least 2 different passes from the same setup without telegraphing which one you're doing, and then you need to be able to read the opponents' pass defense to decide which to execute.

Just like in football, time in the redzone is going to get you the win.

If you're in the Washington, DC area, come out to the Crystal City Sports Pub in Arlington (23rd street and S. Eads) on Tuesday night at 8:00 PM. They have a handicapped tournament that is great for new players who want to learn to play tournament level foosball. Other cities have similar events, foosball.com should have a listing.

Sumner

Re:Step 5

[91degrees]

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.

Okay then..

[Anonymous Coward]

> Spend under $50.

Hey CowboyNeal, bet'ya $49.95 you can't take this laptop, climb inside that foosball table and stay down there while I hammer the surface back on..

Lingo and Serial Port Listining..

[g00z]

First, I found it sorta wierd that he decided to use director as a front end -- Personaly I would have used flash since actionscript is less archaic than lingo is and for doing dynamic vector stuff flash cant be beat. But hey, more power too him.

I am, however, curious as to how he is getting this data (1's and 0's) from the serial port to director? I wasn't aware that lingo had any hardware level control (besides the keybord and mouse) -- unless he's got it wired up so the bx board is actualy simulating a mouse click, but he doesn't say. I find myself wanting more details.

And by the way, the article is a little misleading. $50 for the sensors, breadboard and card reader. Flat screen LCD, foozball table and computer not included. See store for details.

Re:Lingo and Serial Port Listining..

[packeteer]

First of all i agree that flash would be better but maybe he has a lot of knowledge of director from his studies...

I believe that the way the data is taken in is by simulating a keystroke which is then captured.

And finally i dont think this was meant to be an outline for anyone else to do the project. His goal was to only spend $50 but im sure people could do it with less depending on available materials.

Re:Lingo and Serial Port Listining..

[TheTomcat]

Director has much better support for third-party "Xtras" (plugins). Yes Lingo is a dirty, nasty language (better now that dot-notation is the norm), but I don't think serial-port interaction could be directly possible in Flash Player.

See: Serial Xtra

S

Cool, but...

[Harald74]

...can it sense your mood when you're loosing?

Re:Cool, but...

[VikingBerserker]

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.

And he got *credit* for this project?

[kbs]

I'd be curious to know what the original statement of the project parameters were.

Also, it seems that the encoding on the student card may be the same as what we use; apparently the encoding of the social security number in my student card is the same as the encoding of the social security number at a local supermarket.

The goal problem

[Kajakske]

Well, he doesn't detect goals for 100%, right ?
Couldn't he combine the two systems ?

Like, detect when the ball hits the back plate + when it goes thhrough the vending machine censor. That way, if the ball just rolls in, the vending machine sensor will detect it, when it bounces the plate will detect it, and when they do bot (bounce but roll in anyway) they'll both detect it ...

It might get him over the $50 when adding extra sensors ofcourse ...

Re:The goal problem

[Latent IT]

That's a great idea. And on the database side, the PC could just discount a goal if it's made within x seconds from another goal.

Do that!

Umm... security concerns.

[elrond2]

Any system tied to SSN is pretty scary -- even with an MD5 hash the SSN is recoverable due to the small 'keyspace'. Comments?

Re:Umm... security concerns.

[dr_labrat]

You are absolutely righy, and yet I can't help feeling that it doesn't actually matter.
Its a foosball game.

Re:Umm... security concerns.

[sporty]

Ah, but if this becomes a permanent system, now you have proof of where kids are in the school.

BMCC had a problem with this, where they tracked your entry into various buildings and if you didn't entre certain buildings at certain times, in liu with your schedule, you'd lose financial aid.

So nw the concern is, is the kid goofing off or in class? At NYU, they don't care.. they just care they are getting money and have someone standing in front of the classroom "giving quality education".

Re:Umm... security concerns.

[Valar]

And the foosball gestapo will show up and take you away, never to be seen again, if you get too good. Can't have you challenging the established foosball hierarchy.

Re:Umm... security concerns.

[ivan256]

BMCC had a problem with this, where they tracked your entry into various buildings and if you didn't entre certain buildings at certain times, in liu with your schedule, you'd lose financial aid.

This sounds like a rumour. It can't possibly be true. How would they account for two people going through the door at the same time? How about people swiping their card and then not entering the building. Sounds like something they tell the gullible freshman to scare the shit out of them.

What?

[MoThugz]

From the article: In my opinion, the most interesting part of the project is the database that ties everything together. When the user swipes his or her NYU card, Director takes this information and sends it to a ASP script (running on an Windows 2000 box that is tied to an Access database). This ASP script runs a MySQL query through Access and spits back XML that contains information on the player (wins, loss, average points per game, number of games played, etc) . This XML is passed back into Director via getNetText and put into global variables which are then fed to the screen at the appropriate time.

ASP script on a Win2k box, tied to an Access DB, which runs MySQL queries, spitting out XML which is parsed in Director. Does this guy actually realizes what he has written?

Re:What?

[TheConfusedOne]

ASP script on a Win2k box, tied to an Access DB, which runs MySQL queries, spitting out XML which is parsed in Director. Does this guy actually realizes what he has written?

Windows.KNOT?

Re:What?

[chicks.net]

ASP script on a Win2k box, tied to an Access DB, which runs MySQL queries, spitting out XML which is parsed in Director. Does this guy actually realizes what he has written?

Let's just hope that this wasn't for a software engineering course. :) Or NYU grads are in for a rude awakening after graduation.

Re:What?

[Otto]

Other than the fact that he said "MySQL" instead of "SQL", I see nothing wrong with what he said. He's got an ASP script on a box running, say, IIS. When you get the script through the webserver, it runs some SQL Queries on the database, and returns an XML document with the results. The Director program he wrote uses getNetText to run that HTTP query to the webserver and get the XML document back. It parses it, and displays it.

Simple and straightforward. There's easier ways, but that sounds like it was fairly easy to prototype and test quickly. You can test that the script is outputting the right data without having the Director crap done yet.

Re:Step 5

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Let's consider the choices, shall we?

1. Fun
2. Not Fun

This guy chose (1) and now has an excellent foosball game, plus the admiration of thousands (notably NYU females, admit it, they're hot) and only a small load on his (borrowed) server.

You chose (2) and I suspect are at home poring over recent InfoWorlds.

Who's the better man? I leave that to posterity to decide. But I can guarantee I know who's enjoying his life more.

Spin Detector? Re:Spinning

[kbs]

I'd love a Spin Detector on my TV... so that whenever a politician's trying to spin something I can be warned... ...although I guess it would prove useless because the damn thing would be flashing all the time...

Of course it cost less than $50...

[pwagland]

He just happened to have:

1. A large flat screen plasma TV "lieing around"
2. A spare box running W2K
3. Licences for MSQL (it was legal, right?)
4. Licences for macromedia (that control app was made legally, right?)
5. A Foosball table...

If I had all that lying around I am sure that I could of done it for $50 as well.... If not... well the licence for W2K alone would break that budget. And that is the cheapest item on the list!

Not trying to take anything away from the hack, it was very cool, but saying that it cost $50 strikes me as a bit rich....

Re:Of course it cost less than $50...

[sporty]

It's typical NYU silliness. NYU students are either

a) typically rich
b) getting their degrees slowly
c) in debt from loans

Re:Of course it cost less than $50...

[91degrees]

It's quite feasable that the screen was already there.

I think he used MySQL which sorts out one of the licencing costs. as for the computer - He must have had a couple of spares lieing around. What sort of a geek would he be if he didn't?

Re:Of course it cost less than $50...

[Innominate Recreant]

He didn't say it cost less than $50. He said he spent less than $50.

Re:Of course it cost less than $50...

[bdash]

think he used MySQL which sorts out one of the licencing costs. as for the computer - He must have had a couple of spares lieing around. What sort of a geek would he be if he didn't?

It seems to me that the author of the page is slightly confused:

4. Database: IIS/SQL/MS Access

In my opinion, the most interesting part of the project is the database that ties everything together. When the user swipes his or her NYU card, Director takes this information and sends it to a ASP script (running on an Windows 2000 box that is tied to an Access database). This ASP script runs a MySQL query through Access and spits back XML that contains information on the player (wins, loss, average points per game, number of games played, etc) . This XML is passed back into Director via getNetText and put into global variables which are then fed to the screen at the appropriate time.
(emphasis mine)

How you run a MySQL query through Access is beyond me. Heck, does that even make the slightest sense?

Re:Of course it cost less than $50...

[pavera]

Reading this made me think of the trolls who talk about "compiling php scripts" and the like... yeah I can see why you'd run a SQL query through ACCESS, but running a MySQL query through Access makes no sense at all...

Re:Of course it cost less than $50...

[Rich0]

...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...

Cheaper option.

[vilms]

Spend a tenner on a ball. Get some people together. Find some green space. Use jumpers as goalposts. Play football. Ask one player to keep score.
Afterwards, in the bar, assess each other's footballing ability in a haze of lager and spittle.
rinse and repeat.

Re:Cheaper option.

[Asprin]

More specifically, it requires you to be able to "get some people together".

On the other hand, it might actually be possible to develop a sort-of geekiness scale to descibe for this sort of project using exchange rates to convert people, money and parts into a common currency of 'Geeks'.

To that end, I therefore propose the following first draft exchange rate schedule subject to negotiation, and (of course) public ridicule:

1 Geek for each potential human participant eliminated.
1 Geek for each $100 spent on hardware/parts.
-1 Geek for Each $500 spent on commercial software.
0.2 Geek for each year of age of legacy or vintage tech parts used (> 5 years).
1 Geek for each 1000 Lego(TM) blocks used.

1 Geek bonus if a new language (human or computer) resulted from the project.
1 Geek bonus for posting it on your web site.
3 Geek bonus for getting it posted on /.
5 Geek bonus if your web server doesn't melt as a result.
10 Geek bonus is your project *IS* the web server.

I'm sure we can flesh it out a little, but that's a start. so, let's try it out:
1......1 Human statistician eliminated
.5......$50 in parts
-.5......$250 in commercial software (Win2k + Access)
0......0 Legos
0......0 Legacy factor (old parts)
9......Posted on web site, made it to /., server didn't melt.
=====
So, by my calculation, this project rates 10 Geeks.

Not bad, but 90% of that rating comes from the publicity, so I think the scale needs some tuning. I guess the first thing we need to do is calibrate the scale by rating some standard projects so we can figure out what we want a standard 'Geek' to be.

Spinning not officially allowed

[Trillian_1138]

According to the "Official Foosball Rules" that came with my foosball table (which came with the house when we bought it...) spinning is _not_ allowed in tournament games.

As I've never played a 'tournament' I play with spinning allowed, but YMMV.

-Trillian

Re:To the author...

[packeteer]

foosall can be played aloen just fine. Its good practice just to make shots and practice aim and differant moves.

Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[caluml]

I'd love to know how it came to be called foosball?
Is it to do with the German way of spelling it, with that crazy B letter they have?
I've only ever known it as table football. In fact I couldn't work out what you were talking about at first :)

Re:Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[Dammital]

Google for "history of foosball" and you get this.

Apparently it's a decades-old transliteration of the German word.

Re:Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[Sircus]

Probably - ß actually stands for a double s. Thus, Straße can be written Strasse and Fußball can be written Fussball. I'd guess the 'oo' bit is either someone's misspelling based on football, or someone who thought it was 'Füßball' (note umlaut), which without German characters would be written 'Fuessball' and pronounced roughly 'Foosball' (though with a short 'a' - as in 'ran').

Re:Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[larien]

I wondered that myself, and thought it was a type (on Slashdot? Never!). However, from here:

The original game we know as table soccer probably originated in Germany during the late 20's. early 30's

....

The German word for field soccer is ''football'' spelled FuBball .

The funny-looking ''B'' is pronounced like two S's. hence the many corruptions of that word still used in many sections to describe the game.

Re:Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[radish]

Even that's wrong - Football is English, German is Fussball. The "weird B thing" is a double-S, and can be written as ss (and is pronounced as you would expect). It's also important to note that the German is pronounced more like "ferssbAl" - note the hard A and that the U is more of an "er". If it had an umlaut (the two little dots over the letter) then it would really be "oo". The way it is usually said, the "b" almost ends up sounding like a "p".

Re:Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[radish]

First place I ever heard it called that was on Friends - I assumed they made it up in some earlier episode! However since then I have discovered that my american colleagues have a table in the office, and they too use the mispronounced german name. Strange, they keep the "table" bit even in Germany!

Re:Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[swb]

I always thought that the German 'u' transliterated as an "oo" sound to most Americans, while :U would most likely transliterate into something with more of an American e sound.

Although if that was true, we wouldn't call it Munich, we'd call Moernchen.

Re:Not a troll, or an Anti-American post but....

[radish]

I obviously bow to your first language :) I have however got some german friends who say it differently, but, whatever! As for the umlat, I think I'm confusing my o-umlaut with my u-umlaut. And to think new year was 2 days ago, my brain still isn't working!

Re:cool project

[RobotRunAmok]

I was sort of dismayed to see how he seemed to stick with proprietary technologies like Windows and Director.

My guess is he was familiar with these "dreaded" proprietary technologies and wanted to finish the project sometime before he graduated.

Often, the best tool for a job is the one you already have handy and know how to use. It was a foosball hack, afterall, and not a governmental census database for an emerging country, right?

You should see a foosball tournament some day

[idletask]

I was in Nantes when the AFBF held the national foosball (called "baby foot" here) tournament. Balls were litterally flying around the table. I considered myself a pretty good player until I saw real champions play...

Also, the foosball table that the guy used is really gross... He should have used a real foosball table instead. Those plasticky tables just suck, no way to lock a ball.

Re:To the author...

[WPIDalamar]

It's easy ... 3 Parts Gin, 4 Parts Vodka, 1 Part foosball table.

The Russian Linesman

[GothChip]

When we play foosball we rule that the ball has to drop to the return slot to count as a goal. If it hits the back plate and bounces out again we just carry on and blame the Russian Linesman.

If the professor was smart to see the problem...

[sporty]

4. Spend under $50.

5. Cost of union (onion :) workers to move the tv: $100

6. School cost of relicensing from MS-SQL to DB2, several thousand dollars.

7. Expression on student's face when his project doesn't work since he only spent $50: Priceless.

Seriously, doesn't the professor factor in the cost of other tools, such as the database and other software in?

Re:Proprietary technologies

[tps12]

Uh oh. The guys in my frat (don't ask) used to play a form of foosball where if you were shut out then you put your name on the wall of shame, and played with your pants down until you scored a goal.

Re:MM director for 50$ ?

[Innominate Recreant]

He didn't say it cost $50, he said he spent less than $50.

Re:Proprietary technologies

[CheechBG]

We had something similar with our friends (not Greek related). We all got together for a rousing game of caps (like quarters, for all you uneducated people out there). House rules stood as whomever got shut out had to run approx. 500 feet outside and back naked. Our friends (one of whom I'm sure will post here and corroberate) has a sign signed with all the names of those who ran, my name is on there :)

Innovation?

[giel]

I'm very sorry, besides the header is a little misleading I don't see anything innovative or interesting in this project... Back in '87 I had a teacher who used an Acorn and some homebrewn hardware to measure the speed of moving objects and other 'scientific' stuff and then draw graphs of the data gathered.

What does this fussball table that a pinball machine doesn't? IMHO it is just a rather primitive two person pinball game. Oh yes, it reads smartcards, very impressive.

Anyway I can image it must have been fun to built it. And... NYU now can measure how much time their students spend on playing fussball.

Re:Innovation?

[iuyterw]

What does this fussball table that a pinball machine doesn't?

Ummm...Allow you to play foosball?

All this technology??

[tartanboy]

You put all this technology into the table and don't even include a 'boo button' for when the other player gets a goal? Come on!! Nothing soothes a bruised ego like hearing the crowd boo the other guy.

Is this a hoax?

[SethJohnson]

I only ask because there are no screenshots of the stats or score or anything like that. He's got a few pictures of some stuff in a tupperware box and a foosball table on its side. There isn't really a picture that proves this is anything more than an idea the guy had.

3 Goalies or 1 Goalie?

[strictnein]

Here's another question:

What do you prefer, 3 goalies or one goalie?

Whenever playing with friends (with two people on a side) I always want to control the defensemen and the goalie (at which I do a frustratingly good job). I've always aboslutely detested tables with 3 goalies on them. They just don't make any sense in my opinion. There aren't three goalies in real soccer (football) and there are 11 guys on a side in real soccer (football), not 13.

Bending rods....

[orim]

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?

Re:Bending rods....

[pthisis]

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?

The backpin and frontpin squib are both legal, but they're not that effective at high levels of play. Also, you don't need to bend the rod much to shoot them--you can get the ball to shoot out just as fast with firm pressure rather than torquing the hell out of it, as long as you brush the rod off of the ball at the right speed/direction.

The kind of topspin you describe can be achieved on every shot with the right follow-through.

Basically the only time you'll see the backpin squeeze is from the goalie area--with enough practice, you can effectively pass to either side of the forward's 3-rod or shoot on goal with it. Even then it's usually limited to pick-up/funsy games as opposed to major tourney play.

Primary shots you'll see up front are the pull shot (with the middle man--including all straight, middle, long, and cutback/spray options), the snake (front-pin the ball, flip the man over and hit the ball--you can move it either direction), and the regular front-pin (which you can move either way). Less common but still seen are the push shot (with the middle man--harder to square off and effectively hit all the options than the pull), the push-kick (near man to middle man, plus dink options), the pull-kick, and tic-tac shots.

For the last 10 years I think every major tournament in the US (Worlds, Nationals, US Open, and Vegas Hall of Fame Classic) has been won by someone shooting a snake, pull, or front-pin. If there is an exception it's very uncommon. In the 70s and early 80s the push-kick and pull-kick were pretty successful as well, but nowadays literally everyone ranked in the top 200 who shoots a kick shot is over the age of 40--those shots have weaknesses that the snake, pull, and front-pin shots don't have. On european tables (grippier and slower) the front-pin is far more popular than in the US, but it's been gaining popularity here recently (since the top player in the world, Frederico Collignon, shoots it exclusively and has destroyed the US players in the last few years).

Popular funsy shots include the scorpion (bump off the near wall and brush at a steep angle into the goal, HARD), Texas T (chip the ball from a frontpin on the near man to the middle man and straight in, without moving the bar sideways at all), alien (two-handed push-kick that you slam with the left hand--hard to describe unless you see it), and the 3-to-5 smash.

Sumner

He should have disassembled the thing

[Otto]

I have a foosball table similar to that one, albeit larger and heavier. In any case, once you get the case open, the ball invariably rolls down a smaller chute, one per side, to get to the bottom again. Sticking a sensor in that chute which would detect 100% of the time would be damn near trivial.

He should have spent the time to open it.

Am I allowed to respond to all of this?

[dpstyles]

Am I allowed to respond to all the feedback I've gotten? 1. Yes, yes, yes... I know that SQL != MySQL. That was a typo. I worked on multiple projects this semster - some using SQL to talk to Access, others using a MySQL database. I hope all the haters out there can forgive my two-letter typo. :) 2. Yes, yes, yes... there are beter ways to do this than my ASP -> SQL -> XML scheme, but I threw most of the code together while on an Amtrak train from Boston -> NYC. Maybe when the semester kicks off again I'll revisit the code that drives the stats engine and clean it up a bit... but come'on, it works fine now, and hey, that's all that counts in my book. 3. To whoever suggested taking apart the table: You try it. That thing is hot-glued shut and I was not planning on taking a crowbar to our beloved foosball table. 4. And, and of course, to all the "less than $50" people... *of course* it didn't cost less than $50... it uses a flat screen and a dedicated box! The write up I threw together makes reference to spending no more than $50 on *new materials* so I could afford Christmas gifts. Give a kid a break! Um, I think that's about it. Meet me at the flagpole, 3pm sharp, if you want to discuss any other negative feedback. -- see, that's a joke. //dens dens@dodgeball.com ps: Thanks to all the postive feedback - esp the idea for dual-sensors in the goal, the mood of the players (no joke, there is a momentum meter built in which tracks unanswered goals), and to my favorite suggestion, the "boo" button. Ha!

cost

[emkman]

my foosball table came with a scoreboard, timer, prewired goal sensors, and a cool center ball launcher(optional of course), and the whole thing only cost 60$

Linux Version....

[Tsali]

... you could probably do something similar with...

a) A plane old computer lying around (I'd even say a 486)
b) Your favorite distro.
c) Java.
d) You could run a clotheshanger through the bottom of the goals and make it complete a circuit when depressed. This could link up to a $5 gamepad or other cheesy input device.
e) IIS? SQL? For Foosball? You could probably get away with plain text to keep track of things. If he was tracking velocity, shot placement, shot location, angle, number of beers.... well, I don't know how he'd get it. But if its just win-loss-ties, how hard could it be?

The ID reader was a slick idea though. I'll have to try out a shoppers club card on it.

Too bad my table sucks.