Top speeds in foosball
Stefan Janssen
Was this ever tested?
Keep on foosin'
Stefan Janssen
OOPSULOST
>From: Stefan Janssen <stefan-...@t-online.de>
>Date: Thu, 17 June 1999 09:42 AM EDT
>Message-id: <3768FB37...@t-online.de>
Rich Fosner won the speed competition on a radar gun at the 98 Worlds with a
push shot of 29 MPH, but I believe that at the HOF in Vegas last year he hit
one 32MPH. (IIRC) So you better hit the weight room....
Km
BIG270
that 31 mph was the top speed. I find that to be a little slow, but I would
love to see how fast ours is going.
OOPSULOST
>From: big...@aol.com (BIG270)
>Date: Wed, 23 June 1999 07:08 AM EDT
>If this can be tested, I would like to know how to do it. A friend told me
>that 31 mph was the top speed. I find that to be a little slow, but I would
>love to see how fast ours is going.
I wonder if would be easier to test the decibel level coming out of the goal.
There may be slight differences in construction that would make one table
louder than another, but it'd be fun to get a decibel meter from Radio Shack,
hang a small mike about a half an inch down from the top of the goal and have a
"Top Gun" contest.
It'd also be cool to plug the mike into an amp leading to a subwoofer(mine has
a built in 2700 watt amp). Then paint the men and balls white, turn off all
the lights put some Zeppelin and a black light on.... COSMIC FOOS!
Has anyone ever played foos with just a strobe light on? I played ping-pong
one time at a party like that, never laughed so hard in my life.
Kevin "If you remember the seventies, you weren't really there" Munro
Bruce Nardoci
>
> If this can be tested, I would like to know how to do it. A friend told me
> that 31 mph was the top speed. I find that to be a little slow, but I would
> love to see how fast ours is going.
I was at a tournament once where they had a device that measured the
forward speed of shots. I think the fastest shot then was about 25 mph.
This may not sound very fast,
but remember the ball is only traveling a few inches when shot from the
3 row (or a couple feet from the 2 bar). Also, this was before the
invention of the rollover shot, which seems to be faster than the slide
pull style shot that won the speed contest.
There have been other attempts to measure the speed of shots since then,
which is where the current record of about 31 mph came from. In the last
5 years or so I think someone had an electronic device to do it, and
it's also been tried low-tech by removing the back of the goal and
seeing how far the ball flies before it hits the ground, and I've heard
of people trying to do it by counting the frames (1/30th of a second per
frame) on film of shots.
The tournament I was at where the fastest speed was about 25 mph was the
original Hall of Fame tournament about 15 years ago in Long Beach CA
(the tournament that introduced the original Stryker table). The guy
there actually had 2 electronic devices. One measured only the forward
speed of a shot from the 3 bar to the goal (the lateral speed wasn't
measured, just how hard the ball was hit). I think it worked by having
two electric eye beams - when the ball crossed the first one (aimed near
and parallel to the 3 bar) the timer started, and when it crossed the
2nd one (at the goal lip) it stopped timing, and then converted that
time to mph. That was the device I remember having the fastest speed of
about 25 mph.
However, he also had a second device intended to measure a complete
shot, including the lateral speed. That device had something that fit on
the part of the 3 bar that sticks out beyond the cabinet, which could
tell when the bar moved laterally. When the bar moved, the timer
started, and it stopped when the ball crossed the electric eye at the
goal. You had to start your shot from a completely stopped position or
the timer would start before you actually did your shot. I don't
remember what the speeds were on that, but I think they timed different
types of shots, since a slide pull would have an advantage in that
situation over a pull kick due to having less distance to travel, etc. I
don't remember what the speeds on that device were.
Bruce Nardoci
>
> >Subject: Re: Top speeds in foosball
> >From: big...@aol.com (BIG270)
> >Date: Wed, 23 June 1999 07:08 AM EDT
>
> >that 31 mph was the top speed. I find that to be a little slow, but I would
> >love to see how fast ours is going.
>
> There may be slight differences in construction that would make one table
> louder than another, but it'd be fun to get a decibel meter from Radio Shack,
> hang a small mike about a half an inch down from the top of the goal and have a
> "Top Gun" contest.
>
> It'd also be cool to plug the mike into an amp leading to a subwoofer(mine has
> a built in 2700 watt amp). Then paint the men and balls white, turn off all
> the lights put some Zeppelin and a black light on.... COSMIC FOOS!
>
> Has anyone ever played foos with just a strobe light on? I played ping-pong
> one time at a party like that, never laughed so hard in my life.
>
> Kevin "If you remember the seventies, you weren't really there" Munro
Yeah, I did that back in the early '70s. We used to invent a lot of
crazy games on Rene Pierre tables back then.
One of them was playing in the dark with a black light on and the ball
painted with a fluorescent paint that glowed under the black light -
eerie!
Another was called "tilto". What we do is unlock the table and open it
up and put a Coke can in each corner between the lower part of the
cabinet and the top part, so the playfield is kept at an angle. You have
to constantly fight the tendency of the ball to fall to the low side of
the playfield (via keeping it pinned except for very brief intervals,
balancing it on the side of the man to do a push kick, etc.). This is
fun, and allows for some interesting "curve" shots if you don't hit the
ball real hard. I'm not sure if it would be possible to play on a
Tornado since the ball is less grippy and therefore it's be hard to pin
it to get it off the lower wall when it falls there.
We also had some other games like "aerial assault" (nothing but air-ball
shots allowed, from any bar), and "meatball" (which later came to be
known as "oneball" on Tornado tables).
Matthew
record foos sounds. In a computer 'wave' display, it should be possible
to calculate the exact time between the ball being struck and it hitting
the back of the goal. Provided we have the exact distance, an estimate
of speed should be simple arithmetic.
Boris
Thor Hoberg-Petersen
when you were playing aerial assault, which shot did you make? In particular, what
shots can you do with the five bar. Were you allowed to hit the surface (to get a
bounce). Just curious,
thor
Bruce Nardoci
tournament on it. The rules usually were if you did a "real" airball -
i.e., one that you could legally do in a game (and made it of course),
you got a point. However, you were also allowed to do illegal air balls,
but a made one was only worth a 1/2 point. BTW, the opponent was only
allowed to "defend" any air ball shot using his 2 bar and goalie rods.
Legal Airballs:
Just like the method you do for the common real airball shot (on French
style tables like Bonzini & Rene Pierre) of shooting/knocking it
backwards into your own back WALL (on the ramp section) with top spin
from the 2 bar (the ramp and top spin causes it to bounce off the wall
into the air, similar to using "english" on a shot in pool); you can
also do air balls shots by knocking it off a MAN hanging down behind you
with the same motion (For you Tornado players, the French table men are
made of aluminum and not balanced, so they hang down unless someone is
holding them up). That last maneuver works from any rod to any man
(yours or your opponents), making it possible to do an airball shot from
the 5 bar or anywhere else, not just the 2 bar.
My favorite, which I sometimes use in singles when I have a big lead, is
from the middle man on the 3 bar off one of your opponents 5 bar men
(whichever is closest to the middle of the table) - since he has to
defend against potential other shots normally by putting both hands on
the goalie and 2 bars, his 5 bar man has to hang down unattended. A
friend of mine got good at using the far man on the 3 bar to knock it
off the far man on his own 5 bar (squeezing the 5 bar into the wall so
the far man's foot would automatically cut the ball when it went in the
air at an angle towards the goal rather than straight into the end
wall). Other ones were from the 5 bar off the back wall, etc. We even
tried some airball banks by knocking it backwards from the 2 bar off the
back wall at near the side wall at a sharp angle so that they'd rebound
(bank) off the side wall on their way up.
A couple more elaborate ones I tried once in a while was to shoot the
ball (with top spin) from the far man on my 2 bar forward to the front
end (not my back) wall, having it bounce back in the air to my 2 rod,
and when it gets there knock it towards the goal (either in the air or
on the floor, depending on how high it was when it flew back to the 2
bar). The other one was similar, except I shot it into the forward wall
from my 3 rod so that it'd rebound (in the air) back to my 5 or 2 rod,
where I'd use my left hand on the 2 or 5 bar to try to knock it in the
goal. Never actually made either of those shots, but came close a few
times.
Another way of doing the airball shot was to knock it back with your 2
bar into the back wall, and as it rebounded off the wall slightly in the
air put your 2 bar man in the way so it'd pop up off the man and land on
TOP of the goalie bar (which on Rene Pierre/Bonzini tables is only about
a 1/2 balls width from the wall, so the ball easily will sit on top of
it). That was the difficult part of this shot. Then you simply moved the
goalie rod so the ball rolls towards the goal opening, and just as it
gets there put the goalie man about horizontal to catch it (laying on
the back of the man) from falling into the goal. Then, with the ball
laying on the man, just maneuver the man to wherever you want to shoot
from in the goal hole area and flip it forwards, throwing the ball in
the air to the other goal.
We also attempted some other ways of getting the ball airborne, such as
jamming/pinching the ball between the man and the wall and slapping the
end of your handle into the wall; "walking" it up the side of the wall
trapped between the side of the foot and the wall to where you could get
the foot under it; or squeezing/pinching the ball between the tip of the
foot and the floor so that it'd pop up a little as the pinning slipped
off enabling you to hit the ball airborne like a drop kick. However,
these were rarely successful in getting airborne, much less making them.
Illegal Airballs:
These were things like setting the ball on the floor in front of a man,
and slapping the floor with the palm of your hand causing the ball to
rebound up in the air a little, where you could do a normal swing to
"kick" it in the air. We'd also do stuff like laying it (by hand) on the
front ankle portion of the man's legs, holding the man somewhat
horizontal. From there you had 3 main options: 1) just using a normal
shot motion to flip the ball in the air, 2) doing a "drop kick" by
dropping it on the floor and then as it bounced off the floor hitting it
with the normal shot swing, and 3) (my favorite) flipping the man UP so
the ball would be lobbed above the man's head, and then swinging the man
backwards so the foot would come around (360 degrees) and hit that ball
forward over the mans head.
I'm sure there were others, but its been so long since I've messed with
anything but the basic airball shots I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
Frankly, remembering it now, we must've been an insane bunch of foosers
to even come up with some of this stuff :-).
BIG270
of pwer in my left hand. My friend, FOOZGURU, is the one that brought up the
fact of top speeds on the table. So, i need to find a way to measure the speed
going from the back rod to the goal.
4guy...@gmail.com
Look under You Tube for "fastest Foosball shot amarillo"