Mano a Mano Armwrestling table?

[Coley Jones]

And have the lasers burn the guy getting pinned. It' all about motivation.

[John Wilson]

I once set out to make just such a table, and as Frank mentions, the hardest problem is in sensing parallel pins. I was going to use a photoelectric sensor but you have the problem of beam width vs. beam spread, especially if you go retroreflective. Send / Recieve would be better, but then alignment becomes a big issue if you are using a slot to manage beam width accuracy. A laser is the obvious choice until you begin to consider cost and then alignment is still going to be the fly in the ointment.

The other problem with parallel pins is arm length or the position of the guys on the table. For instance, if the pin is two inches inward from the pin pad versus one inch... or closer to the center than that. How you do you make sure the sensor is seeing the hand/wrist rather than the forearm (if the sensor is placed closer to the center)?

It came down, for me at least, that to sense parallel pins would not be realistic. That's why human brainpower is still light years beyond technology where intelligent decisions are concerned and especially where judgement is required. A machine can only make decisions based on clearly defined setpoints, otherwise it will make a decision you or I would not agree with.

I love automation but in the end the value of the sport can be diminished if the sport gets tailored to suit the limitations of the table. I want a ref to have the latitude to determine that my opponent's elbow came up but went back down with no advantage gained rather than stop the match when I have momentum on my side. Restarts are the devil of this sport in my opinion.

[SeungMin Bae]

Feb 16, 2009 12:08:28 GMT -5 Coley Jones said:

And have the lasers burn the guy getting pinned. It' all about motivation.

;D only undefeated armwrestlers would not have burning lines on their hands...

[Coley Jones]

;D