h a l f b a k e r yA dish best served not.
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Etch-a-Squash
Marks are left on the walls where the ball hits, until reset. | |
Using heat sensitive glass, or cutting-edge global-hyper-colour
technology, a squash court could be made to imprint the marks the
ball makes when it collides with the wall and hold them for a time.
Presumably, using a hot/cold temperature flush behind the wall
would
make the marks disappear.
Allows
the squash player the following:
1.) Accurately call an "out" if the ball has hit the line.
2.) Coaching staff can teach players where to hit the ball, or where
they're going wrong, by pointing out where the ball is hitting the
wall.
3.) Tired players can finish up by trying to draw a big smiley face
on
the wall in one rally.
A button or voice command activates the cold flush.
Martina Navratilova's tennis art
http://www.guardian...t?picture=334412673 Not entirely dissimilar to this [hippo, Sep 23 2009]
[link]
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nifty [+] I want each player to have their own colour though. |
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+ for voice activated cold flush. Always a bonus. |
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Could be done virtually using Hawk-Eye and a projector. |
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funny how you can skim an idea and pick out 5 words and vote + |
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I was hoping this would be a Halloween pumpkin that you can shake to erase it. But this is nice too. [+] |
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velocity-dependend coloring and rule changes to accomodate some sharp-shooting bonuses [+] |
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[FT], I thought the same thing, but had absolutely no idea how it could
be done. |
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I had a thought this weekend about how to make the ball leave
different colours when hit by each player's racket. What if the
technology was based on static electricity? One racket would be
charged with negative polarity, the other with positive. When the ball
hits the racket it picks up a charge and deposits it on to the wall,
leaving one colour, then hits the other racket, picking up the opposite
charge, and deposits that on the wall, leaving the other colour. |
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Is there any feasibility in that, or am I clutching at straws? |
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...or the wall could be a giant touchscreen and colour alternate hits with different colours. This would have the advantage that the hit patterns could be easily downloaded for later analysis, and the screen could be easily cleared for the next people who've booked the court. |
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Couldn't you just have it go different colours alternately? |
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mmm... rfid'ish thingy inside the ball changes according to whatever racket (which also has some doodads in it) hit it last and the wall picks it up ? |
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The touch screen is a good idea, but I was trying to think of something
relatively lo-tech, something chemical or physical, rather than playing
inside an enormous iPhone, which although would work, would be
outlandishly expensive, and is a bit too easy for the HB. |
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each racket sends a signal to whatever's controlling the wall when the strings are pulled from hitting the ball. |
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sure you *could* mess it up by smacking yourself in the head or punching it, but that seems to be the easiest method. |
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OK then ... the paint colour of the ball remains constant, but between each hit the end wall of the squash court spins round so that your hits are on the other side of the wall from your opponent's hits and can be easily differentiated. |
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That's tough when you're right up the front playing a soft drop shot,
only for the wall to smack you in the face and deposit you in the
darkness behind. |
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Unless of course the wall span round in panels... |
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Panels, yes - 500,000 1cm^2 panels. |
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What could be more lo-tech than that? |
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Absolutely - it's a mature technology too, as used in those old-fashioned mechanical dot-matrix train indicator displays. In fact, as these move to LED displays, there must be a lot of these mechanical displays going cheap... |
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Nice. I've also been thinking about all those trains on the underground
with the "Open >>" buttons that don't do anything but make old people
look like worried technophobes as they furiously bash the button at the
station until the doors open automatically. Can they be put to use
elsewhere? |
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I like this. I'm now thinking of how I can etch a skull & crossbones into the wall to further pressurize my beleaguered opponent. |
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If the entire wall is a mechanical dot-matrix display, it can be used to flash subliminal messages at your opponent. |
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As a colleague says: there are no opponents - only enemies. |
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I think what's needed is a ball that is slightly magnetic. |
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Or use polarized light behind a plastic translucent wall that can show stress lines. |
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There's also paint impregnated with color-filled microbeads that pop under the right amount of pressure. The marks would be permanent until a fresh coat were applied, however. |
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easy, put one color on one side and another on the other side. |
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Black marks are very baked already, however [+] |
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What's needed here is a ball -n- wall sport where the racket is manipulated along guy wires in 2 dimensions, a la the etch-a-sketch. |
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