Any chance you'll tell us what the game is?

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

I’d like for the game to help people identify relationships between processes that involve changing spatial relationships between the game pieces and at least three common changing quantitative characteristics of the game pieces that can be initially set to be equal or different. I’d also like for the game to be able to be used as a peripheral to help programmers define mathematical relationships that could exist between the game pieces – in addition to helping people identify these relationships who are not familiar enough with mathematical expressions to program the game pieces. Finally, I’d like for the game to be an oversimplified example of an information source that modeled population dynamics with new common variables - for people with a diversity of geographically-specific interests. If you can think of any uses for such a game, or would like to argue how such a game would be inaccurate or impractical, please visit Open Biodemometrics Forum :: Index.

 

How can something with so many words be so vague.

Why not just write a program for a touchscreen computer or an iPhone / iTouch? Do the game pieces have to be 3 dimensional or will a 2D representation work?

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

I am not sure what you mean by vague – that I have not decided on a final design plan, that I haven’t described all of the many things that my game could model, or something else. I prefer a peripheral because it is more accessible to a group of people than a keyboard - as well as, I think, offers a better representation of the geographical location of the pieces. I could use a touchscreen computer or an iPhone / iTouch to remotely communicate with players who have the same game – though I might have to learn how to encode information with sound first.

 

I’ve decided to go with a grid of aluminum strips, though in case anyone finds a stiff flat sheet with the resistive properties that I was looking for, I’d still be interested. Is there a best way to connect resistors between a single conductor and each strip - to encode each strip with different resistances and complete the circuit?

 

Maybe my response sounded vague because my short term plans for the game aren’t as closely related to what I would like to eventually use the game for as I would like them to be. I’ll try to be more specific by saying that I would like to use my game design as a model of how human traffic patterns defined by grouping people according to biometric data develop in time - and, specifically, how five different populations - represented by each game piece, having groups in each population defined by three gait types that are common to all five populations - represented by three displays on each game piece, interact and develop in changing locations. I don’t know if these types of relationships actually exist. I imagine that the type of aerial photography - that could gather gait data of large groups of people for analysis to identify groups and prove or disprove that a relationship exists, is probably mostly used for military purposes. If the data were available and relationships were found to exist, then I think that it would be interesting to investigate areas where similar patterns were found for a reason for these similar occurrences. However, even though there are many factors effecting people’s body language, including their race, skeletal structure, muscle distribution, body fat distribution, health, time of day, and changing mood – I think that not overlooking the possibility of such relationships that could better define the chemical and social nature of human development is important, if for no other reason than these relationships could help define people and human development in more dynamical, common terms. Have you heard of any such studies?

 

Please explain more. But I would think you need to make a board of metal plates and have each one connected to it's neighbours by a resistor (to simulate the resistive sheet you are looking for). I don't see how you are going to track down where a playing piece is along a conducting strip after you've figured out which strip the playing piece ison.

 

You might have a better idea. I haven’t really thought about it that much. I actually thought of this idea while considering one of your prior posts. I’m running out of time on the public computer that I’m using, so let me know if this explanation is too brief. Basically, I plan on using a plurality of parallel metal strips in two perpendicular x and y directions, insulated from each other, to identify locations according to where electrical contacts on the game pieces contact these strips. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll just describe the strips in the x directions first. At one end of the game board I intend to electronically connect all of these strips. On the other end of the game board, I would like to close the circuit by connecting each strip to one conductor – to conserve the amount of pins that I have to use on a microchip. However, to encode each strip with different electrical characteristics, I need to make the electrical characteristics associated with each strip different. So, basically, while all of the strips connect to the same conductor, each strip has to connect differently, through a different circuit, so as to distinguish the electrical signal associated with each strip. I believe that the best way to do this might involve connecting each strip to a circuit in such as way as to make the electrical characteristics associated with each strip – that connect to the same conductor, as distinguished as possible. In doing this, I might be able to save parts by using the component(s) associated with each circuit connected to each strip in another/ other circuit(s) associated with (the) other/ another strip(s) as well. Encoding strips in the y direction in a similar way might allow me to identify game pieces according to coordinates defined by intersecting x and y strips. Does this make sense?

 

Looking through some of the posts in this forum, in addition to all of the interesting ideas and thoughtful questions, I can’t help but notice that there has been a tendency to refer me to already made products. Without depreciating the value of these already made products – but, also, without keeping organized records of the cost of resources for my present project, I would just like to point out that the cost of these already made products may make them inaccessible for small projects such as the one that I am working on. I’m afraid that this might be an example of overlooking a large market, who, when having to decide between elaborate technologies and manual methods, choose manual methods because products and resources aren’t designed and made available for their price range. This could be one characteristic of populations that I represent on my game board, though I would like to focus on identifying psychological qualities and dynamical development characteristics of populations - that may be able to be identified by grouping people by gait type, and that might be overlooked as understanding between cultures is still broadening.

 

What commercial product is remotely like your vision? I couldn't think of anything that fit with your concept.

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

I think that just about all sensitive screens on the market- such as those at Touchscreen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, share at least one functionality.

 

But they are single point. The mulitouch units can detect multiple fingers but cannot identify which fingers.

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

That’s true, and why I’m making instead of buying.

 

Actually, I have seen a multitouch unit that can identify visual information on television. However, I forgot which show. It had the type of Volumetric display technology shown at Volumetric display - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I don't know if it is safe for the human body to interact with this type of display without protection. This device that I saw on television allowed human interaction, though I am not sure of the best way to describe the technology that made this interaction possible. The person on the show was able to move images in the display by touching and dragging the images with their hand - which I imagine, if this device is real, involved some type of biometric pattern or gesture recognition system. Of course, if your argument is that it is impossible to build the type of device that working on, then the example that I saw on television doesn't disprove anything that you said - because the designs are obviously very different. However, upon reconsidering one of the designs that I mentioned that I consider more advantageous than using several aluminum strips - involving a single flat sheet of conductive material, I wonder if it is the case that - out of all of the construction sheets on the market that are both conducting and nonconducting, all of these sheets have a range of resistance that fall outside of the range that I have been describing.

 

A laptop display and 3D glasses... Those volumetric displays are leading edge tech and would not be exactly cheap.

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/