Hmmmm...I guess you had to be there, huh?

 

Recommendation: Next time, tell them that your job is a stripper escort for Las Vegas showgirls instead of, outhouse mucker....

 

So, from what I understand, many industries are interested in resistive sheets but not ones that have the range of resistance that I am interested in – that are comparable with that of a variable resistor over a couple feet. Is this right? Nevertheless, though I haven't been able to find one, it seems to me that a database of the resistive properties of materials may be useful in case such materials are accessible for such things as partitions. Whether the resistance was measured as a function united cubed or united squared may be important – I haven’t researched or thought much about it. As for AC, I have tried to use some programs that modeled the flow of electricity. However, they were very complicated and I never got them to work. Can anyone refer me to a model of how AC flows through a sheet? Should I visualize the waves as changing in time or with distance? I'm not sure if I'm using the right vocabulary, but what would a model of the wave distribution in the sheet look like if segments of the flow of AC in the sheet were "dampened"? I'm thinking about a wavelength of about one foot on a sheet about one and a half feet by one and a half feet, with one ground, and others with multiple grounds. Could a large enough segment of the wave be dampened or otherwise effected by the base each game piece to produce a unique difference in the way that electricity flowed through the grounds? By unique, I don’t mean unique to each ground but to the electrical characteristics in multiple grounds as compared to one another. Does this make any sense? Would the dimensions of the sheet make a difference in terms of how the AC reacted to the edges of the sheet, or would this even be important to consider?

 

Resistance is resistance. Whether it's a variable resistor or a fixed resistor or a sheet of resistive material. The thing about electronics is that resistances from a small fraction of an Ohm to tens of millions of Ohms are commonly and routinely used. The "best" resistive value depends on what you are doing, what's available (sometimes circumstance dictates what resistance will be used), and what the rest of the circuitry looks like. Without knowing what your design criteria are, it's impossible to even guess at the value you want or need.

To give an example, the common carbon resistor uses carbon as the resistive part. But, carbon resistors are made in a range from a fraction of an Ohm to 10's of millions of Ohms. The carbon is mixed with non-conductive materials to set the resistance. So yes, you can look for the resistive properties of materials but, there are so many other variables that, unless you are engineering resistors, it's pretty much a waste of time.

You're asking questions that suggest that you've never had training in basic electricity. My first suggestion is to take a class or find an online course to learn about these basics.

I've never heard the terms about, "function united cubed or united squared". Maybe others here have and can give advice on that.

Anything involving AC is more complicated than DC. You really do need to get the concepts of DC figured out and work with them for awhile before launching into AC projects.

That you keep wanting to know how the complicated stuff works rather than asking how to start with the most basic concepts and then trying to work up to the more involved ones suggests that you are on a dream quest and the path that you are following will never give you more than a dream.

Until you take the logical steps of learning the basics of electricity and electronics and do some hands-on experimenting, you're just never going to make any progress.

Resistance isn't "dampened". It's just there. Dampening is accomplished by other circuit actions.

You're talking about things that happen at UHF and microwave frequencies when you still haven't figured out DC theory. What answer or explanation would you be able to understand?

There are methods that can (and have been) used, with these frequencies to do position finding. Radar for example. But, how do you understand the concepts of something like radar when you don't have simple DC theory and practice under your belt?

As I see it, you have two possible paths. One is to go back to square one and learn electricity and electronics (keeping your goal in mind as you do so) or to keep stabbing in the dark, hoping to find some "magic bullet" that will somehow both sense and resolve what you have in mind.

At this point I really do have to ask if you are even looking for an answer. You don't seem to be interested in the technology of it so much as the esoteric nature of it.

 

If resistance varies as a function of distance in materials, one of the things that I would like to consider is a material that offers a changing amount of resistance - that can be measured without sensitive equipment, and that is consistently related to changes in the distance between the sources of 3, 5, or 9 volts between about zero and one and a half feet.

 

When you find it get a Patent.

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

 

The point is, ANY resistance will do that. It's what resistances do. But, they don't do it just by setting them out on a table top. Resistances do it when you've designed the proper circuitry around them.

I don't know how to make it any plainer. Until you take an interest in and learn some of the underlying electricity and electronics you have nothing but a pipe dream and there's no possible way that you'll ever be able to learn more. Just continuing to ask semi-related questions (stabs in the dark, really), wont get you any closer to knowing how any of it works than you know now.

That you have shown no interest in actually learning those basic principles suggests that this is probably not the right forum for your questions. Typically, the people here are looking for practical solutions rather than vague, nebuous guesses about what might be.

It's difficult to take your wonderment seriously when you just refuse to take the next step to either learn some electrical basics or do a little experimenting and then report what you learn or discover so we can work with you. We'd like to help, really but, there's just nothing to work with when it's all conjecture about what might be rather than getting down to the principles of the way things actually work.

I have to ask. This is the type of thing I've seen before and it's almost always older gentlemen who have never done technical work in their life. Usually it's been work like farming or factory work or preaching or some other job that didn't require a technical education. At some point they start thinking about some pie-in-the-sky dream and try to come up with some reasons how it might work...if only there were some unknown or as yet undiscovered property of some material that could bridge the gap between just thinking about it and having it happen.

Maybe it would help if we knew what you do (or did) for a living so we at least have some frame of reference as to what you might know about things in general.

 

My take on this from what I have read.

He's not into games actually,
he doesn't like the idea of using ready made technology,
He wants a hands on tactical type game but still seems to feel it has to have a complex computer interaction with the game pieces,
He doesn't like programing, He doesn't want complex electronics though.
He has thought about eye tracking tech to calculate where the player is looking for what ever reason.

At this point I would say he's a
Military defense contractor,
Kid with no real life knowledge of computers, electronics, game play simulator tech, or human machine interface devices.
A mental patient that has computer privileges.
Unrealistic dreamer who's afraid of actually taking a step and then finding out reality takes a fare amount of time, money, knowledge, skill, and effort to actually get something practical and useful from it.

Just speculation on my part.

__________________
"Issue a general safety warning. Then look the other way and allow stupidity the chance to eliminate itself." -- tcmtech
"Those who can, Will. Those who can't, will achieve positions of power over those who can and then promptly stop them." -- tcmtech
"Your impossibility may just be my day to day routine." -- tcmtech

 

All jasonbe's posts follow this quest for the same device, they are simply titled differently but all arrive at the same point. He does have a web site I just can't find the link, I recall it's a social study site on human behavior (I could be wrong on this).

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

 

A behaviorist!
That would actually explain a few things. Social theorist or indirect observer of human culture.?

We may be part of a study?
If we are I am declaring it!
The monkeys found the hidden camera!
External influences are now going to skew the end results. The study is over.

__________________
"Issue a general safety warning. Then look the other way and allow stupidity the chance to eliminate itself." -- tcmtech
"Those who can, Will. Those who can't, will achieve positions of power over those who can and then promptly stop them." -- tcmtech
"Your impossibility may just be my day to day routine." -- tcmtech

 

I don't think it's a study. Actually, I've been baiting him just a little bit for awhile. The one thing you'll notice, as a trend, is that when you start giving him some useful, practical info, he suddenly "discovers" a new direction to try to steer things.

It's a classic ploy of older (and sometimes even younger) guys that want to keep dragging a conversation on and they can actually be pretty crafty at it. I, myself am old enough that I've encountered this sort of thing more than just a few times. As Michael Caine so aptly says, in the Austin Powers moview, "This aint my first ro-day-o, son".

This is the first thread that I've actually encountered, Jasonbe but, I'm not surprised that it's not his first attempt at trying to inject this same basic thread into the ElectroTech Forums.

I can't speak to a website or the possibility that he may see himself as a modern day Pavlov, testing salivating dogs but, I do believe that his ignorance of electricity and electronics is real and that it's something he uses as part of his modus of operendi.

Actually, I believe that there are those here who think my doggedness with the "sound propagation" posts may be this kind of endless, pestering thread but, I can assure everyone that there is a point to it and, the reason I persist is that I want to get to the answer. I also realize that ElectroTech is probably not the best internet forum for it but, I want to get the engineering viewpoint before I try other places. That, coupled with the fact that every site wants you to sign up to post and frankly, I'm signed up for so much crap on the internet that I actively try not to sign up for more except out of dire necessity.

I rather look forward to Jasonbe's next post....

 

It seems as though I’ve started a recreational and artistic post. If it is not a linear relationship then what type of relationship is it?

 

Who do you profile for?

 

Some of my posts are about this game. What I try to model in some of them is a functionality and not a device. In this post I am trying to focus on the electronics involved in the game and not the game itself. The site can be described as being on human behavior.

 

I'd have to disagree with you here. Please review some of my posts - including my last one.