each submarine has a big bat mounted on to the back of the conning tower (thumb don’t ask – I have no idea how big, we will need to experiment to fine tune the details)

the driver of the submarine has to avoid the ping signal hitting his submarine but has to knock it back with his bat; and to keep the ping volley going as long as possible.

the timer or submarine commander, as you may call the team leader, can calculate the distance of another submarine by taking a stopwatch and timing how long it takes the "ping" of sonar to go from his/her submarine, bounce off the other submarine bat and travel back to his/her submarine.

the pinger is a lowly sailor who has to do all the hard technical stuff which involves playing around with the little knobs that activate the pings. listen, don’t fool yourself that I am a novice at this game, I just don’t want to get you all bogged down in technical terms.

scoring can be along the lines of table-tennis.
-- po, Sep 29 2002

scoring system http://tabletennis..../usatt/bl-rules.htm
[po, Sep 30 2002, last modified Oct 05 2004]

ponar.
-- bristolz, Sep 29 2002


<looks at bris's anno> "stay!"
-- po, Sep 29 2002


cool
-- kaz, Sep 29 2002


Will the teams be grouped into Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?
-- FarmerJohn, Sep 29 2002


"One of our submarines... is missing... tonight..."

Is a 'ping' something which can be avoided, and yet struck back with an attached bat? I thought a ping signal just radiated out from the source.

If it were that direct, how would you see it coming in order to move your bat in front of it?

FJ, that pun actually caused me physical discomfort.
-- waugsqueke, Sep 29 2002


Sadly, the "ping" of sonar is a wave front spreading out in all directions.
-- DrCurry, Sep 30 2002


But no reason to be sad any longer. You see . . . the ping of Ponar remains in a small, dense clump with a great deal of surface tension and elasticity. This characteristic specifically sought by the Ponar developers as it allows the ping to be batted about. Further, these same folks also imbued the pingballs with a high hysteresis surface so that "English" can better be applied as they are batted.

All in all, quite an accomplishment.
-- bristolz, Sep 30 2002


don't give me that old bull, Nick dear. they can join in the game.
-- po, Sep 30 2002



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