[John] wanted to take a pong clock and put it in a wristwatch form factor. Take an afternoon and pour over his detailed build logs. This multi-year project is done with meticulous cleanliness that makes us jealous. He’s milled the case and buttons himself, achieving a professional look that equals or surpasses the quality of some commercially available “gaming” watches. The project centers around an OLED display driven by a TI MSP430F2013 processor. Don’t miss the video after the break covering prototyping, PCB work, case milling, and the watch in action. Currently, this is the third generation of development but with a project this exciting, are you ever really finished? Read the rest of this entry »
[Akeeh] posted something to our flickr pool that caught our eye. The image was a rotating POV display, playing pong. We followed through the links and found this very well done rotating pov display. The construction is quite nice, showing multiple colors and smooth motion. there’s a little bit of wiggle even though it has a custom round pcb. Maybe a little better counter weight would help with that. The idea isn’t new, but it is good looking and elegantly made.
[Adam] sent us this cool game he made. It is accelerometer controlled pong (translated). The screen is a Nokia 3310 LCD, tied to an ATmega8 for the brains. He’s using an MMA7260 accelerometer for the controls. The whole thing is encased in an iPod nano box. this looks like a pretty fun little game, though we’d like to see someone attempt a two player match with it.
Sometimes, it can be very difficult to find a partner to play pong. Lets face it, pong just isn’t worth playing alone. Someone has come up with the perfect solution, a robot built specifically for playing pong. It watches the “ball” with a web cam and presses the appropriate buttons on the keyboard with its tentacle like arms. It is vaguely reminiscent of the switchboard operators from Men In Black, and definitely overkill for the job. You may notice there seems to be some performance issues with their game of pong. I doubt that the game itself is that taxing, but the same computer is controlling the robot as well.
People often accuse the computer of cheating when it is the opponent. This could be partially attributed to the fact that you don’t have a physical representation to identify with, the computer seems like an all knowing adversary that divines your moves from the aether. The chief cook actually does try to cheat though. They’ve trained it to play pong, all the while trying to distract you. Upon winning, it lashes out the insults pretty well too. We’ve seen the chief cook before. Last time, he was learning to cook. What will his next adventure be?
It seems like there is a pre requisite that any technology demo should include pong. It may not be new tech, but we’ve never seen pong played like this. It seems like it could get pretty hectic if it were to be sped up.
[Perry's] awesome AcceLED Pong project gives new life to a classic game by adding acceleration-based control. The pong paddles are moved by tilting the circuit left or right. Motion is measured by an ADXL203 dual axis accelerometer, and an ATMEGA32 microcontroller converts acceleration into ball and paddle movement. The game display is a three-color SparkFun 8×8 LED matrix with serial interface.
[funnypolynomial] saw this Pong clock years ago and had been planning on building his own version. With a move looming he decided it was finally time to finish up his Pong clock since completed projects take far less room than incomplete ones. The core of the system is a ThinkPad. He separated the hinge and bolted the keyboard to the back of the screen. The display ribbon was long enough, but he had to extend the wires for the backlight. The power button was also extended and the battery removed. The software is a Windows screen saver that uses the two mouse buttons for navigation similar to how you set a two button watch. Every minute the the left player misses the ball and the right player’s score increases. You can see a video of the clock below. In the past, he also turned a digital multimeter into a clock. Read the rest of this entry »
There are few things that are enduring and axiomatic in life, but one of the things on our short list is love of Pong. Designer [Moritz Waldemeyer] apparently shares our obsession: you may remember the LED-lined stage uniforms he designed for OK Go, but this concept for a Pong table is certainly older and arguably several times more awesome.
[Dylan] sent in this amusing use for an O-Scope. The entire thing was implemented using six chips – four logic chips, 2 op-amps and 13 pots. Hit the video after the break or check out the project page.
