Some restaurants/clubs have signs made of focused light that shine on the sidewalk outside and dart around. They always get people's attention.

Make a whole bunch of these signs and you can practically build a video game, like Asteroids, on a grand scale! Simply fill a plaza with them, or have them flow over one city block on a sidewalk, and kids will love to run through the Asteroid field and try to dodge (or hit) all of them!
-- phundug, Jul 27 2005

people who enjoyed this idea were also mildly entertained by this link. http://gadgets.enga...y/1234000250046186/
what will *they* think up next? ping-pong in the dark? [po, Jul 28 2005]

Analog Pong http://www.dishgo.c...lpasta/videos.html#
(second row, fourth from the top) [Ehrm, Jul 30 2005]

Another real life arcade game http://www.pacmanhattan.com/
It is what you think it is. [Ehrm, Jul 30 2005]

Neon Wedding Dancefloor Asteroids Neon_20Wedding_20Dancefloor_20Asteroids
by me. In similar territory, if more conspicuously interactive. [calum, Aug 01 2005]

Real life Tetris http://videos.somet...m/mega64/tetris.mpg
[Ehrm, Aug 02 2005]

Walking on Glass!
-- gnomethang, Jul 27 2005


The interactive versions of this usually involve enclosed places and cameras recording the players' positions. (For example, in my local Sony center there's an interactive floor tile that accomodates about up to four players and reacts to their position - making "waves" around them, etc.)

How do you scale this up and take it outdoors? Any ideas for something cheap and robust that has the projection react to where people are and what they do?
-- jutta, Jul 29 2005


A little man hiding behind the curtain?
-- DrCurry, Jul 29 2005


[jutta] - It need not be interactive. It would be fun just to have lots of shapes moving around.

It could even be a road. Using multiple cameras on a rotating cog, a "moving sidewalk" could be projected, making passersby feel like they're walking faster than they actually are.
-- phundug, Jul 29 2005


What happens when people put in their highscores?

British seaside arcades of the late 80s all seemed to have been visited by one or more of the legendary high scoring; NOB, TIT, COC, FUK, or BUM, not to mention the ubiquitous, AAA.
-- zen_tom, Jul 29 2005


A non-interactive video game?

(Sounds like a Super Mario mod that I read about which took out all chances for, and obstacles to scoring. You can go for a walk until time runs out and you die.)
-- half, Jul 29 2005


It oculd be made interactive by using pressure sensors under the cement. Step on the cement just as the light gets there and

and I don't know, a fountain shoots up at you or something, soaking you and indicating you're dead.
-- phundug, Jul 29 2005


// You can go for a walk until time runs out and you die. //

There's something profound about that, somehow.
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 30 2005


I'm surprised somewhere like Disneyworld hasn't done this already. The only downside I could see to something like this is motion sickness and with everyone looking down, there'd be a lot of bumping into things or people. Instead of asteroids, have dog crap or gum you have to avoid.
-- goober, Jul 30 2005


//Any ideas for something cheap and robust that has the projection react to where people are and what they do?// [Jutta], I can't see any better way to do this than with an overhead system of lights and scanners. It may be possible with pole-mounted optics around an open area, but I see it depending on viewing angles and would prefer to have the some of the projectors mounted directly overhead.

Short version of existing technology: a laser projector draws a grid onto a smooth, white surface. A set of cameras offset from the projector detect the grid and a computer interprets the perfect grid as a smooth surface. A 3D object replaces the smooth surface, and the computer interprets the distorted grid as a shape. Easily and often done, and most Halfbakers are familiar with it.

The Sidewalk Asteroids game system would have to scale that up some, but it shouldn't be too hard. It would also have to make a network of projectors and cameras, but it would not require any sensors in the floor. The visible images projected on the floor and perhaps on the people would serve as the reference grid. As long as the computer "knew" what the image was supposed to look like, any variations detected in it could be interpreted as shapes. The only limitations are in optics and computing power.

So, a image projected on the floor. People move into it, it changes. They react, it reacts. It circles them with lights, and guides them away from other people. The projected images cover their bodies, except their eyes. When the video game "kills" them, the lights flash into their eyes.
-- baconbrain, Jul 31 2005


The title could have been "Sidewalk Pong", except that we already have plenty of those.
-- hippo, Aug 01 2005



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