Darkstorm
01-11-2003, 11:47 AM
Hostage...This is going to be a LONG post.
First a bit about me. I have played paintball for 1 year, but I have been a consultant for a long time and one of things I do is sometimes be one of those damn "idea" guys. I am capable of a doing a lot of technical things, but just don't have the time any more.
First thing, understand how you or others are looking at the world. If you understand your biased way of looking at the world it is easier to find cool things to do. A lot of people look at the gun, but is the gun the important thing? What makes paintball FUN and makes people want to play? Go out into an open field by yourself with your gun and see how fun it is. This is important because concentrating on things that make the sport fun produces better results. Further, if you can concentrate on things that have not gotten much attention, it is easier to do cool things (remember TK has been looking at how to make guns better for years). Think about AirBall fields.
Another thing, sometime innovation is really just improving just about putting exsisting things together or making them smaller. The other big thing is preventing bad things from happening keeps a support fun.
So here is a dump of ideas. I can describe....what do you want to talk about. I or can just tell you about them all.
Idea List -
95% Safe Air Fill Station........[details added]
Economical 5K fill station.......[detials added]
Marker Sound Effects.............[details added]
Marker Electronic Silencer.......[details added]
Law Designs
Ball Hauling
New Mask Design
Fog Prevention (car defogger?)...[details added]
Electro triggers.................[details added]
Integration Concepts (Markers, Masks, Etc)
Impact Detection
Impact Reduction
Game Visibility Systems..........[details added]
Game Tracking Systems (Programs)
Game Play Concepts
Field Designs
Fields Material Sources
Research Field Safety Considerations
Research New Player Factors and Marketing
Night Play Sound Systems
Night Play Anti Night Systems....[details addded]
Details ----
95% Safe Air Fill Station
-------------------------
<Personnal note: I think this is #1>
First off, let's assume I am not an expert (because I am not) but have compiled hearsay.
People don't THINK Air Fill stations have problems because 99.99% of all HPA fills occur without any problems. However, the number of HPA fills is increasing and a fill failures can be some of the most dangerous in our sport. With the number of fills increasing and the pressure increasing, more individual events will occur. I know of, numerous fill disconnects happening, at least 3 regulator separations, and one bottle rupture. While there has been injuries, I believe there has been a death now. Further, the potential for serious injure or death is not just at the fill station, but easily within a 30 YARD radius from the station.
There are two major type of failure two deal with: Line and Bottle.
Line: Primarily disconnect from bottle and line whips around. Line rupture may occur, but have never heard of it.
Bottle: Regulator sepration - This causes the bottle to become a rocket. In one case, it was reported that the separation happened so fast that the people at the fill station did not know what happened and the bottle sheared a "section" out of a barrel. Gives a good picture of the forces involved.
Current Solutions:
Lines - Either fixed mount or on failure the fill is shutoff, or an item is used to pin the hose down.
Bottles - None known, except for isolation techniques where the fill station is not near the player areas or the fill tech takes control of the bottle, but is still exposed himself.
In these solutions I have seen wire mesh put up around the airfill station or 1/2 inch pylewood. While that may "feel" safe, does anyone know that will that stop a bottle?
Problems:
Controlling Line Whip
Isolating a bottle with projectile forces.
Economics - Many fields have small budgets and since you are protecting against something that may never occur, it has to be cheap.
Issues:
What is the forces exhibited by a bottle. Case A - Regulator separation assuming 5k fill. What is the maximum velocity a bottle could reach? What is force per sq/in that a bottle impact would have verses material strength. Case - B Bottle Failure. What is the force of a piece flying free from a bottle.
Further, The station construction materials have to be cheap and for most fields, the players need to handle their own guns at the fill station.
Potential Partners:
One of the insurance companies
One of the air systems companies and/or bottle companies
Some of the Larger fields
Possible Solution:
One of the solutions that I have talked with some people goes like this. A strong table is build with a backstop on the filler side of the nitro bottles as they can easy withstand any impact. The table would have 4" heavy wall pvc pipe that extends from just above the table top down INTO the ground with a bottom of sand. There would be a heavy plywood skirt around the table and a fence behind the players side of the fill table to keep other players out of the immediate area. The hoses would be the minimum length necessary for flexibility with maybe a 2x4 across the table with a gap to help prevent excessive whip.
The concept being that when a player goes to fill; they would place their bottle facing straight down the PVC pipe and hold the hose to the gun. If there is a disconnect hopefully the player is holding the hose, if not the short length prevents much whipping. If the reg and bottle separate, the thought is the bottle would shoot straight down and embedded in the ground, thereby containing it and allowing it to vent. In the case of a rupter, the filler is protected by the nitro bottles, hopefully the player would have some protection, and the fence should be keeping a group from forming near the table.
Economical 5K fill station
----------------------------------
More players are switching to a minimum of a 4.5K tank. The cost of filling these tanks is a bit better than a break even cost for many field compared to co2. Many fields don't have power and can spend 20k or more a year on getting 6k tanks, but only have to spend the money as they need it.
Current Solutions:
Multiple bottle solutions, booster pumps, etc
Problems:
As more people switch to 4.5K or 5k tanks the fields are going to be squeezed more on their profits to support these filling these high pressure tanks. Getting a good, low cost solution is the priority.
Issues:
start up cost for the field
lack of power at fields
fields don't want to do improvements to the property
fields may not have good places to store equipment
safety issues with airfills raises risk
a understanding set of data is needed to understand how much air a field uses, etc
Potential Partners:
fields
Possible Solution:
There are a couple of possibilities....
Economic - It is possible that the solution might be able to be a business one where a company with funding could outsource all of the fills at a field. If they got enough fields to sign up, there could be discounts to equipment etc.
Technical - There may be technically superior way to doing the fills that could reduce costs.
Marker Sound Effects
--------------------
POP ... POP ... POP that is about the best noise you can get out of a marker. It would be fun to have a sound chip to have your marker make noises. Something you could program from the computer would be great. You could even provide prepackaged sounds like a star trek phaser, the bark of a marker out of air, or a "Dead play coming through" call. An intelliframe could control this.
Marker Electronic Silencer
--------------------------
This might even use the above item. The concept of sound surpression using "noise cancellation". Imagine if a person could capture the sound of their marker via computer, program it into a sound chip, and then have the reversed sound replay everytime they fire their marker (like via the intelliframe).
Fog Prevention (car defogger type)
----------------------------------
Every player has had to deal with a fogged mask.
Current Solutions:
- Thermal Lenses
- Fans
- Antifog Solutions
Problems:
Fogging still happens, and the fan solutions are more suited to specific masks (At least I think that is like?). Fans make some noise and not everyone owns a fan so people are not convinced.
Issues:
Reduces the postive experience for the players. Thermal lenses still do fog.
Potential Partners:
May not need one and market may include the ski'ng also.
Possible Solution:
Car defogger type solution that can be applied to the inside of the mask and is power by a 9v battery. If the electronics is cheap and there is enough power in a battery, the manufacturing cost should be VERY low.
Another possible solution would be saying the current anti-fog is good enough and have a way to clear the fog from your mask without removing it and doing it quickly.
Electro Triggers
----------------
Possible solutions:
- Triggers that are actually push buttons instead of a normal "gun" style trigger. Maybe even a 2 or 3 button trigger. Lots of different placement possibilities.
- Trigger that works based upon the concept of a resistance switch like on those fancy lamps. The trigger would not actually move. Touching the trigger would cause the gun to fire. The trigger then could then even be a metal ring, put your finger in the middle and wiggle it around. Touching any part causes the gun to fire.
Game Visibility Systems (spectator and players)
-----------------------------------------------
One of the problems with bigger and bigger games is keeping all of the people involved in the game. This is targeted at my scenario experience but might be useful in a tourney setting with some type of rule modification.
I think one of the biggest issues is just understanding the "big picture" field conditions and what is going on. Imagine a big map of a the field that lights up different colors when that part of the field is controlled by one team or the other. This would give a big picture perspective of the game. Imagine at the Spplat game if the Borg would have been able to see the number of flag stations controlled by the federation early on. They might have changed tactics sooner. It could show people where to go and what is happening.
Current Solutions:
No known solutions that are available for the masses.
Problems:
Scenario fields can have distance of more than a mile.
There is no available power.
Other all system has to cost a few hundred dollars at most.
Potential Partners:
Scenario Producers, others?
Possible Solution:
The idea is to replace the flags that are around a field with switches and telemtry data. The Sensors on the field could be a flipped switch to indicate which team has control. Each field station does not need to be small in size but can't be overly large to facilitate transport to and from a game location. So each station would have to be capable of transmitting an on/off state and a unique station id. Each station would have to be capable of transmitting up to two miles and would have to operated at a low enough power that a couple of flashlight batteries could keep it functioning for 48 hours.
Once the transmitter are made, the receiver could be hooked to a computer that controls a board. It would be optimal, if there was a way to retransmit the consolidated information to a board that is battery powered and both on field bases to allow the team to watch the flow of the game.
A further enhancement would be displaying of missions and the status. Additionally, having a way for ref's to tranmit the locations of large battles.
Night Play - Anti Night Systems
--------------------------------
More players are playing at night and night vision equipment is becoming a more regular thing to see on the field with gen2 equipment common and even things such as thermal imaging making its way to the field. As night play becomes more popular play want to defend against these items.
Problems:
Many people don't know how to play against NV and can get frustrated by this lack of understanding. When they do understand NV there is a lack of available items to defend against NV.
Issues:
- How do people knwo what night vision "sees"
- What are the problems with NV
- Are there items that effect NV (clothes, etc)
Potential Partners:
Possible Solution:
Counter Measures: NV has a problem with bright lights, a small strob might be effective in blinding the NV.
Decoys: NV users are getting use to seeing other NV lights and things it is other NV. Making very cheap IR light source could be used as decoys. Other decoy could be simple cutout that take of NV's basic 2d quailities.
NV Cammo: Some material is much easier to see with NV than others and there is research into low-IR clothes.
Night Play Training Video: Most people don't know what NV can and can't see or good ideas on how to play against it. A video could be produced to let the players better understand playing at night with NV.
First a bit about me. I have played paintball for 1 year, but I have been a consultant for a long time and one of things I do is sometimes be one of those damn "idea" guys. I am capable of a doing a lot of technical things, but just don't have the time any more.
First thing, understand how you or others are looking at the world. If you understand your biased way of looking at the world it is easier to find cool things to do. A lot of people look at the gun, but is the gun the important thing? What makes paintball FUN and makes people want to play? Go out into an open field by yourself with your gun and see how fun it is. This is important because concentrating on things that make the sport fun produces better results. Further, if you can concentrate on things that have not gotten much attention, it is easier to do cool things (remember TK has been looking at how to make guns better for years). Think about AirBall fields.
Another thing, sometime innovation is really just improving just about putting exsisting things together or making them smaller. The other big thing is preventing bad things from happening keeps a support fun.
So here is a dump of ideas. I can describe....what do you want to talk about. I or can just tell you about them all.
Idea List -
95% Safe Air Fill Station........[details added]
Economical 5K fill station.......[detials added]
Marker Sound Effects.............[details added]
Marker Electronic Silencer.......[details added]
Law Designs
Ball Hauling
New Mask Design
Fog Prevention (car defogger?)...[details added]
Electro triggers.................[details added]
Integration Concepts (Markers, Masks, Etc)
Impact Detection
Impact Reduction
Game Visibility Systems..........[details added]
Game Tracking Systems (Programs)
Game Play Concepts
Field Designs
Fields Material Sources
Research Field Safety Considerations
Research New Player Factors and Marketing
Night Play Sound Systems
Night Play Anti Night Systems....[details addded]
Details ----
95% Safe Air Fill Station
-------------------------
<Personnal note: I think this is #1>
First off, let's assume I am not an expert (because I am not) but have compiled hearsay.
People don't THINK Air Fill stations have problems because 99.99% of all HPA fills occur without any problems. However, the number of HPA fills is increasing and a fill failures can be some of the most dangerous in our sport. With the number of fills increasing and the pressure increasing, more individual events will occur. I know of, numerous fill disconnects happening, at least 3 regulator separations, and one bottle rupture. While there has been injuries, I believe there has been a death now. Further, the potential for serious injure or death is not just at the fill station, but easily within a 30 YARD radius from the station.
There are two major type of failure two deal with: Line and Bottle.
Line: Primarily disconnect from bottle and line whips around. Line rupture may occur, but have never heard of it.
Bottle: Regulator sepration - This causes the bottle to become a rocket. In one case, it was reported that the separation happened so fast that the people at the fill station did not know what happened and the bottle sheared a "section" out of a barrel. Gives a good picture of the forces involved.
Current Solutions:
Lines - Either fixed mount or on failure the fill is shutoff, or an item is used to pin the hose down.
Bottles - None known, except for isolation techniques where the fill station is not near the player areas or the fill tech takes control of the bottle, but is still exposed himself.
In these solutions I have seen wire mesh put up around the airfill station or 1/2 inch pylewood. While that may "feel" safe, does anyone know that will that stop a bottle?
Problems:
Controlling Line Whip
Isolating a bottle with projectile forces.
Economics - Many fields have small budgets and since you are protecting against something that may never occur, it has to be cheap.
Issues:
What is the forces exhibited by a bottle. Case A - Regulator separation assuming 5k fill. What is the maximum velocity a bottle could reach? What is force per sq/in that a bottle impact would have verses material strength. Case - B Bottle Failure. What is the force of a piece flying free from a bottle.
Further, The station construction materials have to be cheap and for most fields, the players need to handle their own guns at the fill station.
Potential Partners:
One of the insurance companies
One of the air systems companies and/or bottle companies
Some of the Larger fields
Possible Solution:
One of the solutions that I have talked with some people goes like this. A strong table is build with a backstop on the filler side of the nitro bottles as they can easy withstand any impact. The table would have 4" heavy wall pvc pipe that extends from just above the table top down INTO the ground with a bottom of sand. There would be a heavy plywood skirt around the table and a fence behind the players side of the fill table to keep other players out of the immediate area. The hoses would be the minimum length necessary for flexibility with maybe a 2x4 across the table with a gap to help prevent excessive whip.
The concept being that when a player goes to fill; they would place their bottle facing straight down the PVC pipe and hold the hose to the gun. If there is a disconnect hopefully the player is holding the hose, if not the short length prevents much whipping. If the reg and bottle separate, the thought is the bottle would shoot straight down and embedded in the ground, thereby containing it and allowing it to vent. In the case of a rupter, the filler is protected by the nitro bottles, hopefully the player would have some protection, and the fence should be keeping a group from forming near the table.
Economical 5K fill station
----------------------------------
More players are switching to a minimum of a 4.5K tank. The cost of filling these tanks is a bit better than a break even cost for many field compared to co2. Many fields don't have power and can spend 20k or more a year on getting 6k tanks, but only have to spend the money as they need it.
Current Solutions:
Multiple bottle solutions, booster pumps, etc
Problems:
As more people switch to 4.5K or 5k tanks the fields are going to be squeezed more on their profits to support these filling these high pressure tanks. Getting a good, low cost solution is the priority.
Issues:
start up cost for the field
lack of power at fields
fields don't want to do improvements to the property
fields may not have good places to store equipment
safety issues with airfills raises risk
a understanding set of data is needed to understand how much air a field uses, etc
Potential Partners:
fields
Possible Solution:
There are a couple of possibilities....
Economic - It is possible that the solution might be able to be a business one where a company with funding could outsource all of the fills at a field. If they got enough fields to sign up, there could be discounts to equipment etc.
Technical - There may be technically superior way to doing the fills that could reduce costs.
Marker Sound Effects
--------------------
POP ... POP ... POP that is about the best noise you can get out of a marker. It would be fun to have a sound chip to have your marker make noises. Something you could program from the computer would be great. You could even provide prepackaged sounds like a star trek phaser, the bark of a marker out of air, or a "Dead play coming through" call. An intelliframe could control this.
Marker Electronic Silencer
--------------------------
This might even use the above item. The concept of sound surpression using "noise cancellation". Imagine if a person could capture the sound of their marker via computer, program it into a sound chip, and then have the reversed sound replay everytime they fire their marker (like via the intelliframe).
Fog Prevention (car defogger type)
----------------------------------
Every player has had to deal with a fogged mask.
Current Solutions:
- Thermal Lenses
- Fans
- Antifog Solutions
Problems:
Fogging still happens, and the fan solutions are more suited to specific masks (At least I think that is like?). Fans make some noise and not everyone owns a fan so people are not convinced.
Issues:
Reduces the postive experience for the players. Thermal lenses still do fog.
Potential Partners:
May not need one and market may include the ski'ng also.
Possible Solution:
Car defogger type solution that can be applied to the inside of the mask and is power by a 9v battery. If the electronics is cheap and there is enough power in a battery, the manufacturing cost should be VERY low.
Another possible solution would be saying the current anti-fog is good enough and have a way to clear the fog from your mask without removing it and doing it quickly.
Electro Triggers
----------------
Possible solutions:
- Triggers that are actually push buttons instead of a normal "gun" style trigger. Maybe even a 2 or 3 button trigger. Lots of different placement possibilities.
- Trigger that works based upon the concept of a resistance switch like on those fancy lamps. The trigger would not actually move. Touching the trigger would cause the gun to fire. The trigger then could then even be a metal ring, put your finger in the middle and wiggle it around. Touching any part causes the gun to fire.
Game Visibility Systems (spectator and players)
-----------------------------------------------
One of the problems with bigger and bigger games is keeping all of the people involved in the game. This is targeted at my scenario experience but might be useful in a tourney setting with some type of rule modification.
I think one of the biggest issues is just understanding the "big picture" field conditions and what is going on. Imagine a big map of a the field that lights up different colors when that part of the field is controlled by one team or the other. This would give a big picture perspective of the game. Imagine at the Spplat game if the Borg would have been able to see the number of flag stations controlled by the federation early on. They might have changed tactics sooner. It could show people where to go and what is happening.
Current Solutions:
No known solutions that are available for the masses.
Problems:
Scenario fields can have distance of more than a mile.
There is no available power.
Other all system has to cost a few hundred dollars at most.
Potential Partners:
Scenario Producers, others?
Possible Solution:
The idea is to replace the flags that are around a field with switches and telemtry data. The Sensors on the field could be a flipped switch to indicate which team has control. Each field station does not need to be small in size but can't be overly large to facilitate transport to and from a game location. So each station would have to be capable of transmitting an on/off state and a unique station id. Each station would have to be capable of transmitting up to two miles and would have to operated at a low enough power that a couple of flashlight batteries could keep it functioning for 48 hours.
Once the transmitter are made, the receiver could be hooked to a computer that controls a board. It would be optimal, if there was a way to retransmit the consolidated information to a board that is battery powered and both on field bases to allow the team to watch the flow of the game.
A further enhancement would be displaying of missions and the status. Additionally, having a way for ref's to tranmit the locations of large battles.
Night Play - Anti Night Systems
--------------------------------
More players are playing at night and night vision equipment is becoming a more regular thing to see on the field with gen2 equipment common and even things such as thermal imaging making its way to the field. As night play becomes more popular play want to defend against these items.
Problems:
Many people don't know how to play against NV and can get frustrated by this lack of understanding. When they do understand NV there is a lack of available items to defend against NV.
Issues:
- How do people knwo what night vision "sees"
- What are the problems with NV
- Are there items that effect NV (clothes, etc)
Potential Partners:
Possible Solution:
Counter Measures: NV has a problem with bright lights, a small strob might be effective in blinding the NV.
Decoys: NV users are getting use to seeing other NV lights and things it is other NV. Making very cheap IR light source could be used as decoys. Other decoy could be simple cutout that take of NV's basic 2d quailities.
NV Cammo: Some material is much easier to see with NV than others and there is research into low-IR clothes.
Night Play Training Video: Most people don't know what NV can and can't see or good ideas on how to play against it. A video could be produced to let the players better understand playing at night with NV.