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Searching for a mathematical excuse to play a nice game of pong with your friends ?
Statistical theory says that in general, the error in an average is smaller than the error in a single observation. This also holds for decisions. Hence, playing pong with several players holding the racket together should increase the performance.
In 'Out of Control' chapter 2 Kevin Kelly describes an experiment carried out by Loren Carpenter, where an audience of 5000 people play pong using red and green cardboard wands ('Out of Control - Chapter 2' ). Carpenter also experimented with a flight simulator, where the audience learned to land the aircraft in two or three trials. This is much faster than the time it generally takes one single person to learn to fly a plane.
The project Team Pong is inspired by the work of Carpenter, not the flight simulator, but rather the pong game.
In this project two groups of one to ten people can play against each other. By recording the number of players and the scores the theory of Carpenter can be proved.
This instructable describes how to setup this Team Pong project.
Statistical theory says that in general, the error in an average is smaller than the error in a single observation. This also holds for decisions. Hence, playing pong with several players holding the racket together should increase the performance.
In 'Out of Control' chapter 2 Kevin Kelly describes an experiment carried out by Loren Carpenter, where an audience of 5000 people play pong using red and green cardboard wands ('Out of Control - Chapter 2' ). Carpenter also experimented with a flight simulator, where the audience learned to land the aircraft in two or three trials. This is much faster than the time it generally takes one single person to learn to fly a plane.
The project Team Pong is inspired by the work of Carpenter, not the flight simulator, but rather the pong game.
In this project two groups of one to ten people can play against each other. By recording the number of players and the scores the theory of Carpenter can be proved.
This instructable describes how to setup this Team Pong project.
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Signing UpStep 1Joysticks
First step is the construction of the joysticks. In total you need twenty of them, for each team ten connected to each other.
The schematic diagram above shows the interconnections.
The joystick construction is rather simple. It consists of a string of resistors which are switched on or off by the players.
Each player has one small box with two buttons, a normally on black push button to move the bat up. A normally off red push button to move the bat down.
A resistor of 1k ohm is soldered over the switches. When no button is pressed the total resistance of the box is 1k, (1k of the red button + 0 ohm of the closed black button). When the red button is pressed its resistor is shorted resulting in a total value of zero ohm. When the black button is pressed (opened) the total value is 2 kilo ohm. By connecting ten individual joysticks in a string, the total resistance ranges from 0 to 20k ohm.
Note that when one team member presses the red button and the other one a black, the action is canceled out, which is the main idea of this project.
The schematic diagram above shows the interconnections.
The joystick construction is rather simple. It consists of a string of resistors which are switched on or off by the players.
Each player has one small box with two buttons, a normally on black push button to move the bat up. A normally off red push button to move the bat down.
A resistor of 1k ohm is soldered over the switches. When no button is pressed the total resistance of the box is 1k, (1k of the red button + 0 ohm of the closed black button). When the red button is pressed its resistor is shorted resulting in a total value of zero ohm. When the black button is pressed (opened) the total value is 2 kilo ohm. By connecting ten individual joysticks in a string, the total resistance ranges from 0 to 20k ohm.
Note that when one team member presses the red button and the other one a black, the action is canceled out, which is the main idea of this project.
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