Episode 607 Reboot request

You may need to start by sharing some pictures of the version of the game that you are after creating, as they vary quite a bit.

Over here in my youth it was known as the 'Donkey Derby' but that I believe that was a copy of George Valentine Tonner's 'Kentucky Derby' game. Some had animatronic horses on a Scalextric type track whereas some were pulled along by ropes wrapped around pulleys more like Lorrainbow's design. Some were controlled by rolling balls into pockets, and others by tapping switches alternately. Horses have been replaced by camels and rabbits as well.

I recall that some were based on linear tracks like Lorrainbow's Strava version whereas some were based on oval tracks.

Size varied a lot as well from the large arcade versions like this Blackpool Pier Entertainment - Donkey Derby to small table top toys like this Desktop Horse Racing Derby .

The ball-rolling ones tended to be at the larger end of to scale so not clear as to how large a build your were thinking of ?

6 foot long. Big enough for a family get together. Even a smaller size would be great.  I could make a simple roller ball game. Drop a ball in and it hits a couple of pins on the way down to the points holes -like a pachinko machine.

6 foot long. Big enough for a family get together. Even a smaller size would be great.  I could make a simple roller ball game. Drop a ball in and it hits a couple of pins on the way down to the points holes -like a pachinko machine.

The user interface probably the main size restriction if it is mechanical. A 6' long track would probably fit 2 people either side if you are rolling balls, or perhaps 3 either side if you are using some sort of pinball mechanism with less arm movement involved.

How many players and how deep a table were you thinking ? The roll a ball design usually requires that the pockets aren't  reachable at arms length to avoid cheating, but you could have some sort of a clear cover above the pockets to make sure the balls to have to be rolled in.

Mikeatencio said:

I could make a simple roller ball game. Drop a ball in and it hits a couple of pins on the way down to the points holes -like a pachinko machine.

Perhaps also take a look at Skee Ball type arcade game projects for ideas ?

Automatic Scoring for a Small Skee-Ball Game

Homemade Skeeball Game

Mikeatencio said:

6 foot long.

For 12 players then a 6' long track might be a bit on the short side. If you have 6 players either side then that only leaves 1' per player.

Might be worth considering trying to make the design modular in 2 (or 3) sections, so for 12 players the track can be twice as long as for 6 players.

Mikeatencio said:

I could make a simple roller ball game.

This Roll-A-Ball Game project looks like it could get you most of the way on the input side.

They have opted for IR Break Beam Sensors to detect the ball drops and added a small Audio FX Sound Board  

Yes, it does seem very close now thinking about it. I'm going to reexamine this.

That looks like fun for me, my wife and kids and grand kids. I think I'm going to make that for my daughter's wedding in September. Let everyone play and keep the kids busy competing against each other. It looks simple enough. I can get the wood pretty cheap and I have a lot of arduino parts around. If it's a hit, I can upgrade it. 

Hi Dave. First, thank you for your help. I can't tell you how much it means to me. Hopefully, one day I'll get to the UK and I'll happily buy you a pint or two.

Is it possible to code the beam breaks to have different points instead of multiple switches on each hole? One beam breaker coded to one to five points would certainly make it easier to assemble.

What is your opinion? 

I think you are going to be around 2' shoulder width, then you need extra for the elbow movement when picking and rolling the balls.

One way to maximize space may be to make it dodecagonal as that way it's wider at the player end of the slope and then you have a triangle toward the top of the slope for the pockets. 

You could also use a circular track which means the horses never have to rewind to reset the game as the finish line and the start line are now one in the same.

If you keep the design modular, then you can reuse the ball roll part of it as an input for different games. Twelve of these connected up to your HO slot car track and you then have a Kentucky Derby game.

The beam break sensor only has a single 'switch' per hole. The other half of the pair is the light source that creates the beam to be broken. Some sensors have both parts in the same device but it then needs a reflector at the far end rather than a light source. Depending on the target, you may be able to reflect off it instead. Retroreflective sensors are often used as they send the beam back in the direction it originated from and you get a predictable level of light to sense.

If you want to do it off a single sensor, then you would need one that can give you a measurement back. A time of flight sensor could do that assuming you only have one ball in play on the table at a time. It will give you a distance to target so your code could be set up to detect measurements falling between pairs of values to associate with which hole the ball fell through. Ultrasound distance sensors may be another option and can be used in a similar way. Be sure to check their recommended range of operation.

With either of these approaches, you may need to do some experimentation to make sure that you get reliable results before doing your final design. Also perhaps be aware that some of these sensors may give back an analogue voltage proportional to distance and some may work on a trigger and pulse arrangements whereas other may give you an actual distance value rather than a simple switch output, so may depend on your programming ability.  

The single sensor per hole approach may make your life easier even if it does mean additional wiring. 

Some people use lever microswitches but remember that the ball may bounce around a bit and trigger the switch multiple times as it passes, so your de-bounce logic needs to accommodate for that. Two balls could in theory pass through the one hole back-to-back so you need to try differentiate that from a bounce.