[Jason] is back at it again with another new twist on the technically sophisticated and advanced game of Pong. Fashioned in a ‘Chuck E. Cheese’ style platform, the two players stand side by side each other with large foam hammers. A wack sends the 32 bit ARM powered dot skyward and then back down to the other player, where another wack will send the dot back whence it came. A brightly lit scoreboard keeps track of how many dots slip by.
[Jason] is a veteran of pong inspired games, but putting the HammerPong game together brought with it some new challenges. After being unable to squeeze a few MDF panels into his car, and fighting off flies, yard debris and pet dander that were trying to attach themselves to his freshly painted artwork, [Jason] managed to get his project completed.
The HammerPong is powered by an Arduino Due that controls six WS2812 LED strips and runs the background code. Various latches, shift registers and power transistors control the lights and scoreboard. Be sure to check out the linked project for more detail, and take a look at the video demonstration after the break.
I love the animation (sparkles) and the sheer size of the thing. Does the ball speed up every bounce?
better question is ball speed based on how hard you hit it ??
In the end I decided to ignore hit velocity as long as its above a threshold (didn’t want to encourage people to whack it too hard!). It does speed up with each return and can get pretty manic!
Why didn’t you make it curved at the top?
Yes in this case the size of the game makes it really cool. If this thing wasnt up to the ceiling I don’t think it would be half as fun. I love how long the LED matrix are. The animation for the “comet tail” behind the ball is really cool too.
There is a tag missing. I would definitely define a hammer pong controller as a ‘tangible’ device.
PS: I’m impressed of the collection at http://tangible.media.mit.edu .
Exactly how tall is this?
The LED strips are 5m long
Wow, this is amazing, I want to dump a pocket full of Chuck E. Cheese tokens into it! Just two questions, if somebody is a real boss and beats all their friends can they play the computer? (1 player mode.) And have you considered a horizontal version, “Pongball” with players at either end of the LED track and hitting the hammer pads with wiffle ball bats?
Something you don’t see a lot of around here is this level of artistry. From the platforms to the trailing sparkles to the splashes, this game feels very much at home in an arcade, with a sense of physical showing through the “display”. Not once did it break for full-row patterns, effects, or other “virtual” feels.
I think we need more of that here at Hack A Day.
Yeah – beautifully polished. what a treat :)
Even better would be to have the ‘ball’ run across the top bar.
M.C. Hammer Pong? Nahhhh.
This is game mash-up genious! Well done that man.
I feel a little inspired to make a mini version for the desktop with just push buttons. You could play vs yourself.
Now I’m off to find a mashup of two games that works well together like this does…