The Harvard Network Accessible Dartboard 109
These guys hacked a dartboard to serve scores over a wireless network. There is an OpenGL client that grabs the scores, runs the games, stores the results in a database, and suggests moves based on player's past performance. On top of all this, the client looks exactly like the dartboard, so it can be projected over the real thing.
stats (Score:2, Funny)
Very interesting, but... (Score:1, Offtopic)
J.
Re:Very interesting, but... (Score:2, Informative)
1) The board has obvious cavaties: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/pro
2) I've never noticed anything like this on a regular dartboard: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/boa
Read the article, look at all the purdy pictures and _then_ post
Not that I bother doing that of course
I did read the article... (Score:1, Offtopic)
I forgive thine sins. (Score:1)
;-)
I want one of those! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I want one of those! (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd need
1) A camera mounted above the table, so it gets a fairly flat view of the table, and can see all 6 pockets
2) A Projector also mounted above the table, which can project over the whole area of the table (ceiling height would probably make this difficult)
3) A pc in between that runs some kind of image recognition system to spot the balls (I'd think recognising circles of distinct colours would be easy if you're playing english style pool with red and yellow balls. Spots and stripes may be harder to recognise). It could then hook this into a pool simulation engine to work out which is the best ball to aim for, and then plot lines of the ball paths, which would be projected onto the table.
Al made one of these for Sam in an episode of Quantum Leap
Re:I want one of those! (Score:1)
Which, of course, only Sam could see, because it was a holographic projection into Sam's mind, right?
Quantum Leap was cool. I especially enjoyed the episodes where he ended up in a woman.
Re:I want one of those! (Score:1)
Going back on topic, the whole projector thing would only be any use if you wanted to give both players a hand (unless the game is programmed to be able to turn off the hints for the better player). We'd really need some way of making the projection visable to only one player.
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2)
Re:I want one of those! (Score:1)
Think HMD
Kevin
Blindfold? (Score:2)
Is that some kind of blindfold?
Re:I want one of those! (Score:1)
But the best leap was when he was a monkey to be sent in space.
Oh.. and to stay on topic..
Imaging a beowulf cluster of dartboards...
No. Really. Would be nice for tournaments.
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2, Informative)
If you're using red/yellow balls, plus white cueball and black 8-ball, you should be able to detect all of those using 2 light-sensors, a red filter, and a yellow filter.
Of course, you can just play pool at games.yahoo.com if you really need the bounce-angles calculated and displayed on the table
Re:I want one of those! (Score:3, Insightful)
1- Put a camera that focuses on the table and tune it so it just distinguishes circles, not colors.
2- If you put all the balls in a standard formation in which all the balls are ALWAYS in the same place (for example, number 1 with stripes is always on the tip of the triangle facing the player), so after a shot has been made it shouldnt be too hard for a computer to track all the circles movements so it knows which circle is which ball.
My guess for calculating the circles movement is to calculate each circle's center for each frame, and if your're using a fast enough camera you should be to calculate the balls movement...
Disclaimer: I'm not a good pool player neither have i any experience with image recognition systems.
Me not know english? that's unpossible
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I want one of those! (Score:1)
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2, Interesting)
In fact, you could do LOTS of useful things with a system like this. Combine it with two other cameras that get side views of the table, and the computer can get the angle and location of your cue and predict what will happen if you hit the cue ball at this angle with varying levels of force.
The only thing you'd have a problem with is predicting what would be affected by varying levels of chalk on the tip of the cue, but if you played consistently, the system could be trained to predict very well.
Hey, this would be a good topic for my thesis, and a lot more fun than some other topics
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2, Informative)
But all is not lost. I don't see why you can't just track the balls on colour. In pool, each ball has a unique colour and at least some of it is always visible - even on the "stripes" balls (aka bigs or halves). Since you're not tracking movement, you can do all the image processing between shots, taking several seconds if necessary.
Finally, may I suggest, instead of an expensive projector, you could rig up a laser pointer reflected off some kind of servoed mirror. If your computer could manipulate the mirror accurately and quickly enough it could draw out the line along which you should hit. You may well be able to buy these mirror components as they are already used in laser displays for rock bands, museums, etc.
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2)
"Total system cost is only $8995 complete (Low power 5mw).
Medium power 50mw system $9995 complete.
High power 100mw system $10,995 complete.
Includes Pent III desktop computer. Laptop available at additional cost"
Not entirely sure that this is a bargain
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2, Informative)
Also they have a "hackers special" which includes the laser and stuff for $2700, which is almost getting down to the price-range. It looks like the galvo (motors) + mirror subsystem goes for around $1000 though - still pricey.
Re:I want one of those! (Score:2)
It already (kind of) exists. (Score:1)
The only information I could find about it now is at: http://www.bmc.riken.go.jp/sensor/Ho/chicago/Robo
The site includes some pictures and a couple very limited technical details.
Announcements (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Announcements (Score:1)
Re:Announcements (Score:1)
As an aside, the mighty darts commentator Sid Waddell [skysports.com] is well known for his 'unique' commentary on darts. Example: "There's only one word for that: Magic Darts"
Geez! (Score:3, Funny)
Just what we need... (Score:1)
Anyone smelling a hoax? It looks good and even possible, but the dartboard shown looks like a standard horsehair board and not one of those electronic pegboard types, so how does a hit register? A normal dartboard is a damned good insulator with a wireframe over it. Sections don't move, so switches can't be pressed.
woof.
Re:Just what we need... (Score:1)
"It _is_ a digital dartboard, as you can see by looking at the pictures:
1) The board has obvious cavaties: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/pro
2) I've never noticed anything like this on a regular dartboard: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/boa
Re:Just what we need... (Score:2, Informative)
and a quick search of sportcraft on google finds www.sportcraft.com [sportcraft.com]
Which has electronic darts boards exactly like the one they've hacked.
Re:Just what we need... (Score:1)
--Mancomb Seepgood
Re:Just what we need... (Score:1)
Johan V.
Re:Just what we need... (Score:2)
You could use a horse hair dart board using a pair of cameras and a little triangulation algorithm. The result would be a little bulkier, but probably more fun (soft darts suck!)..
Harvard grades (Score:1)
Re:Harvard grades (Score:1)
Watch out for... (Score:3, Funny)
Bonus scores? (Score:3, Funny)
Very cool guys.
Cool hack but not so good players (Score:2, Insightful)
Then maybe they should create a 'tutorial mode' (Score:1)
That would be sweet!
Re:Then maybe they should create a 'tutorial mode' (Score:2)
Re:Then maybe they should create a 'tutorial mode' (Score:2)
I also wonder if the tutor is smart enough to realise that John is crap and should always aim at triple 19s. Clive is playing and it just lights the whole board up as a guide:-) etc
Lastly, whatever happened to KISS, there is more hardware here than they took to the moon
Two things we can notice here: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Pedro V. Sander" desperately needs to get a life according to the stats!
2)
You can be no good at darts as long as you play alone, it is easy to cheat since the PC never notices when you miss the board altogether.
BTW: Pedro, I am not suggesting that there is a link between 1) and 2).
We can even track the slashdot effect. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We can even track the slashdot effect. (Score:1)
Imaginitive! (Score:2)
I'd have thought they could have come up with a better name than 'the dartboard server'. How about 'Jocky [darts-import.nl]', 'Eric [planetdarts.co.uk]', or 'Tricia [planetdarts.co.uk]'
Re:Imaginitive! (Score:1)
"The players are under so much duress, it's like duressic park out there" - thanks, Sid!
Security concerns, anti-cheat mechanisms (Score:2, Interesting)
How Ingenious! (Score:2)
I heard that version 1.0 was done as a dodecahedron. When that didn't work too well they tried the classic "Circle with some pie-slices" approach and found success.
Try out an Etch-A-Sketch (Score:1)
How about a game console? (Score:1)
Someone I know finally made it onto slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
Ok, sure, it's a cool hack... blah blah blah, but you're all missing the most important point of discussion, does or does not Marco Carbone look like Jon Favreau [imdb.com] (of Swingers fame):
Picture of Marco Carbone: here [harvard.edu].
Picture of Jon Favreau: here [imdb.com].
There's almost certainly some sort of conspiracy afoot.
PS. I attempted to find a picture of Marco Carbone as a dog, but alas the wayback machine failed me [archive.org].
Re:Someone I know finally made it onto slashdot (Score:2)
Re:Someone I know finally made it onto slashdot (Score:1)
Also some game theory on the matter... (Score:4, Interesting)
The more interesting part of this paper discusses probability models we use to predict where players will hit based on where they aim. It's interesting: if you are a perfect player, you have the highest expected value when aiming for Triple-20 (obviously), but the worse you get, the best place to aim in the boards spirals inward until it gets to double bulls-eye (which minimizes how often you miss the board).
deamon (Score:2, Funny)
Re:deamon (Score:1)
"Monkey Quotes" stock server (Score:2)
The Harvard guys should get themselves a few good chimps and use their networked dartboard to serve up a website that well-informed chimp-picked stock tips. They can then sell ad space to financial
Hey, there have been crazy dot.com business schemes.
Dart-proof cover (Score:1)
Cool, but ... (Score:1)
The way the board picks up dart hits (Score:1)
WIRING:
Contact sheet 1:
Basically, the grid is broken down into two halves. one of the contact sheets connects full wedges (ie, 20, 19, etc) across the single/double/triple boundaries together with another wedge on the other half. Therefore, there's 10 wires (20/2 = 10)
Contact sheet 2:
contact sheet two connects all the point values on each half...so, for half #1, one wire connects all singles, one wire connects all doubles, etc... one wire connects all singles on half #2, etc...there's 7 wires total, because one of them is used for bull's eye
Implementation (time division multiplexing):
send a logic pulse down each of the 10 wires in contact sheet #1 really fast, in a loop. Read as input on the rings...so, if you read that there was a single scored on the first half, just check where you sent the last pulse down -- deduct which was hit.
i dunno, i guess this is boring, but in case anybody was interested
- blake
Other games (Score:1)
I know that alot of breakthrows in computing and hard ware have happend do to people just fooling around. This could if used right turn into something workable in another feild , maybe your next SAT prompter will be a camera and use of specal pens so it can track cheaters.
But i kinda want one in my home sounds kinda fun.