Light Strike 2: The Strikening

Spent a couple evenings playing with the Light Strike gear in the last couple weeks - small games with the kids.  With four little boys in the house, I don't even need to phone friends or plan ahead to get a good pick-up game going.

The first evening, everyone just kind of ran around the property shooting at each other.  That was fun, but I knew that eventually we'd have to do something a little more substantial to keep everyone interested, even though every twenty minutes for the next week one of the four-year-olds kept asking "Can we play with those guns?"

So, for our second round, I set up some stuff to make things more interesting.  Out in one corner of the property we have a zip-line, and there's a two-story fort/swing set set up underneath it.  I tied some twine in three locations on the fort and hung a Light Strike target on each one.

Almost 100 yards away, near the house, there is a picnic table.  I set our LED lantern out on that.  Then, halfway in between, I tied another bit of twine to a tree and hung a target on it.  The rules of the game for the evening were as such:

• Whichever team color the targets on the fort are is the team that controls the "base."  To capture the base, the opposing team must change all three targets to their color.  Once this happens, "losers walk" - the team previously occupying the fort has to hoof it to the picnic table before coming back accross the playing field to try to take back the fort.
• When you are "dead" you must return to your "base" before respawning.  If your team does not control the fort, this means the picnic table with the lantern on it.
• The target in the middle of the field is a "check point" - if it is your team's color, you may use it as your respawn point instead of going all the way to your base.

This created a great flow to the game - one team was always trying to take the fort and the other was always trying to defend it.  With only five players, it was a fantastic way to keep the game moving.  Even the two four-year-olds were capable of understanding what was going on and participating, and everyone had a blast.  We played for nearly two hours this way.

So this is a game type we will definitely be playing in the future.  I'm also going to build a second fort, as well as determining some other points on the field that could be set up as "check points."  This will allow for some other game ideas, such as Take and Hold - Timed rounds, with whichever team controls the most targets at the end of the round being the winner.  Another idea - with the two ITS systems I have, they could be set up in Bomb Mode in the bases, and the first team to detonate the bomb in the opposing team's base wins.  Working on ideas for how to play a Capture the Flag game, as well - though the traditional idea of dropping the flag when you're "Killed" probably doesn't need too much tampering.  It would be cool to come up with an electronic way of carrying the flag, though.

I have a few ideas for "classes" as well, sort of "Team Fortress" style... I read an idea over at Rich Whiffen's blog about possibly capturing the ITS' medic pulses with a universal remote and it gave me the idea of doing just that and building the remote in to a "medipack" that a "medic" could carry with them.  Equipment loadout ideas for the basic classes would look something like this:

• Sniper - Assault Striker with scope attachment
• Heavy Weapons - Assault Striker with Refractor Launch System (grenade launcher) or Rapid Fire System
• Soldier - Assault Striker
• Medic - Striker and Medipack

Beyond this, I'm exploring a couple of ideas for building some additional Light Strike gear, using the decodes that Rich Whiffen and Brad have gotten out of the gear so far.  Aside from still trying to think up how I'd do an electronic flag, and developing some kind of a medikit, the two major ideas I've had are making some "grenades" and "directional mines."  These would add a great dimension to gameplay, and perhaps could be part of the equipment loadout for one of the classes - the Soldier, perhaps, or even a Demolitions class.

Additionally, we have some of the NERF N-Force weapons - fiberglass core foam swords, and shields.  I've been thinking a Scout class could carry a Striker and a shield, though I haven't determined if the shield would badly imbalance gameplay by giving the Scout something to hide their Striker behind.  Along similar lines, an Assassin/Ninja class could wear a sensor vest and carry just a sword - if they hit someone with the sword, they are effectively "dead" and must go to a respawn point.  Since neither of these ideas integrate fully in to the games electronic system though, I'm still working out whether or not they are viable... and whether or not I can think up ways to add electronics to them if necessary.

LIGHT STRIKE REVIEW

Mmmmm, Laaaaaaser Taaaaaaag *gurgle.*

So I saw this "Light Strike" stuff on shelves for months and months, and kept thinking "wow, that's cool, maybe I'll look in to it."  Well, I kept not looking in to it and to tell you the truth when I finaly did neither the website nor the packaging really did a very good job of informing me on the system or how it worked, so I just kind of threw up my hands and ignored it.

Fast forward about six months and my woman and I are in one of the stores in our area, in a clearance section, and we notice a HUGE amount of this stuff on MAJOR clearance.  So I went home and one last time tapped "Light Strike" in to Google to try to dig up some info.

DANG.  Either a lot of this stuff wasn't on the internet before, or I managed to miss it - found some great reviews and a small but budding community of people interested in it, and in modifying it.  We immediately went back and basically cleared out the store's stock for about half off of original pricing.

Let me start by saying I think that Wowwee (the company that makes those "Paper Jamz" guitars) really failed their product in terms for advertising and packaging.  I would have bought this stuff over a year ago at full retail price if I'd had any idea what it was I would be getting in to.  I'm planning on emailing their PR department a link to this blog post because this product should have taken off like wildfire.

The game centers around the guns, or "strikers."  Strikers are little pistols with both an infrared emitter and receiver.

The three varieties of Strikers and the mini-targets that come with them.

The gun itself tracks damage taken and has several firing modes, a "shield" function, and the ability to select between one of four team colors - blue, red, yellow and green.  If you fire too quickly the gun's electronics simulate the pistol "overheating" and you are prevented from firing for several seconds while it "cools down."  Take enough hits and your gun is disabled until you press your "shield" button and the trigger at the same time, at which point you "respawn" and once again enter the fray, so to speak...



One of the Assault Strikers.

Additional accessories and guns are available.  "Assault strikers" are larger versions of the gun with two additional firing modes and the capacity to accept some accessories, plus they don't "overheat."




Another variety of Assault Striker, with the rapid fire attachment.

Assault strikers have a limited "ammunition capacity" and when you are out of shots you press a button to "reload."  Your rate of fire, ammo capacity and reload speed is all dependent on the firing mode you are in - the more powerful firing modes fire slower and take longer to reload, but do much more damage.  Accessories for the assault strikers include a "scope" which doubles the range of the gun, a "rapid fire" attachment that significantly increases your ammo capacity for the fastest fire mode, a sort of "grenade launcher" that produces an incredibly powerful but short-range blast, and an "enemy scanner" that decreases the amount of damage you take as well as telling you where a nearby enemy is located, as long as they are within 30 ft. and are in front of you.

The third variety of Assault Striker with the "scope" attached.

Additionally you can get a sensor vest and something called an Intelligent Targeting System.  The vest is, honestly, mostly useless.  You can take twice as much damage when wearing it as you can when you're just carrying the gun, but when you're "dead" it has no sound to alert you and does not disable your gun - so you can still run around shooting and basically be "invincible."  This does provide some interesting possibilities for a couple of types of games, but aside from that isn't very useful.  The ITS is awesome, however, with three modes; sentry, bomb and medic.  First, to "control" the ITS one team must shoot it five times.  There are light-up panels on the exterior of the unit that show how many times it has been shot and change color to reflect the team that has been shooting it.  If blue team has shot the unit twice and then red team starts shooting it blue team's hits will first be taken away before red teams hits start showing.  Once a team controls the unit, what it does changes depending on what mode it is in.  In sentry mode it will start spinning around blasting the other teams.  In bomb mode it will count down and once the countdown is complete it can be shot by the controlling team to produce an "explosion" that "kills" all nearby enemies.  In medic mode each time the controlling team shoots it they get back some health.



The ITS unit

Out of the box, the most useful things to have are the assault strikers and the ITS.  Of the accessories for the assault strikers, the scope is really the most useful, though the other accessories may be handy depending on what you want to accomplish.

The "full-size" targets that come with the Assault Strikers.  These can also be purchased separately, in packs of one or two.

I have done some tests and in broad daylight was able to hit another assault striker with one of my own from about 100 ft away.  In the dark this range at least TRIPLED.  That's without the scope add-on which DOUBLES the range of the gun.  I've seen some reviews by fans of other laser tag systems complaining about the range of these guns - considering that 100 ft. is over 3 times the range of your typical NERF gun and there are no darts to pick up, I'm not complaining.  We have four children, and every NERF product in the house has quickly lost all of its ammunition and been forgotten out in the yard to be destroyed by rain.  I don't anticipate this problem with Light Strike at all.  Besides which I suspect that many of the poor reviews regarding the range of the guns has more to do with the reviewer's aim, as the guns can be somewhat tricky to aim at ranges greater than about 30-50 feet.  Additionally, the practice targets that come with each gun do not appear to be as sensitive as the guns themselves, and so therefore cannot be hit from as far away.

This entry is starting to get pretty long, so I'll be writing up another one very soon in regards to my ideas about this system, game types we are/will be playing, modifications I will be making, etc.  I will also probably make up a couple of video blog entries to show off some of the cool stuff I'll be doing with it.  At current count we have 9 assault strikers, 4 strikers, two ITS units, two rapid-fire attachments and a whole mess of scope attachments.  I'm planning to do some extensive modding and tweaking with this system, as well as picking up two more strikers and another assault striker for a grand total of 16 guns.  As handy as I am with electronics, I anticipate being able to maintain and use this system for years and years to come and am very seriously kicking around the idea of starting up a semi-regular game weekend and inviting a bunch of people out.  We live on 7.5 acres and have tons of space to set up some really cool stuff, and with all the features this system has I foresee being able to create some incredibly fun scenarios and teams developing some inventive tactics.

In closing, on the off chance I can actually get someone at Wowwee to read this post, PLEASE DON'T DISCONTINUE THIS LINE.  Revise your branding, correct some errors and some (minor) flaws in the system, and keep making it!  This has incredible potential!

So stay tuned, because the next post on this stuff is going to get in to the cool stuff.  'Til then, just remember that I am taking great pleasure in this system, and as Tony Stark says - if there's one thing you can count on, its me pleasuring myself!

Fifty Thousand Watts of Power...

Okay, well maybe nothing so grandiose, but Sammy Hagar sure does belt that out, dud'nee?  Makes  you kind of giddy.  That's a lot of Les Paul in your face...

So I mentioned I'm a music geek and an electronics nerd, or vice versa... so here's where it really overlaps.  I love tube amps.  I've got a few amplifier projects I'd like to do in the future, and I will definitely document them here.

For now, here's a peek at some of what I've got laying around...

Oh, hey, did I mention I enjoy photography?

This is this great Musicman 2x12 combo amp I've got here.  Its rated at 120 watts, and those are 250 watt EV speakers in the cabinet.  They're HUGE and weigh a TON.  Its very loud, and has a great sound.  It has a tremolo circuit that isn't working right, I suspect a tube is out, and I've just been too lazy to get around to fixing it.  I live in an apartment and its not exactly convenient to fire up a beast like this.  The neighbors don't exactly appreciate it.

I took these pictures on my Nikon D200...

This is my super, super, super sweet Marshall JCM 800 2203.  A hundred watts of bone crushing, skin-shredding sonic force.  Those are 6550 tubes in the power section, which are actually technically bass amp tubes.  When I bought this amp on the cheap it didn't work.  I soldered back together the tube heater circuit and modded the bias circuit on the power section to accomodate higher power bass amp style tubes.  They don't distort as much as EL34s of 6L6es, and when I run my guitar rig in to the low gain input I can crank the preamp volume up all the way and it stays clean until the amp is so loud it feels like its going to cave in your skull.  I usually run an Electro-Harmonix "Metal Muff" pedal for my distortion, but if I use the high-gain input on the preamp the amp itself will get pretty gritty... it will also get uncontrollably loud VERY fast, and once again is the kind of beast that doesn't get woken up very often in apartment life.

without any lighting or equipment.  I like the colors it captures.

This is the hulk of an unfinished amplifier project.  I really haven't had the money to buy the remaining parts.  All of the internal components are complete, though the mainboard won't be installed in this chassis until the transformers are purchased and mounted.  I've modeled this amp's architecture after my Marshall 2203, but once the final components are on the chassis I'll be putting it on the bench and testing some ideas I have and experiment with some things to see how I can get a unique and appealing sound from it.

Of course eventually I'd like to offer this as a series of custom amplifier.  When I get around to setting up my custom amp circuit bench I'll do an article on it.  Until there's money for them though, these projects are pretty much shelved.

One Point Twenty-One...

I'll admit, I can be kind of a geek.  Or a nerd.  Or whatever.  There are a few things in particular I'm kind of geeky about, but two that really stand out are music and electronics.

So this blog may contain some of both, though mostly I'm going to be documenting some of the various projects I'll be doing involving fabricating my own parts and building or modifying electronic circuits and devices.  I will probably cover a pretty broad range of things, as a lot of different kinds of projects appeal to me.

The name of the blog was obviously inspired by the Back to the Future movies...  I mean, what greater modder of the twentieth century is there than Doctor Emmet Brown?  Dude hacked a DeLorean in to a time machine.  So for the heck of it, I'm going to blather on briefly about just how much power exactly one point twenty-one gigawatts actually is.  (This might be indicative of the kind of blog posts I may indulge in occasionally)

Power expenditure or consumption is measured in watts.  We hear about "volts" and "amps," but watts are a measurement based on both... basically, volts times amps equals watts.

Yeah, this guy.

So what is a watt, in practical terms?  Well, a 60-watt light bulb takes about 60 of them to produce light.  A 37 inch flat panel LCD TV requires about 120 while its on, and so on and so forth.

Next you need to understand the gradiations used in measurement of electrical concepts.  A watt is one watt.  A kilowatt is a thousand watts.  A megawatt is a million watts.  So every time we step up a gradiation, we're increasing by multiples of a thousand.  That means a gigawatt is - that's right - one BILLION watts.

So, if it takes 1.21 gigawatts of electrical energy to power the flux capacitor for a single time jump... that's the same amount of power required to run ten million televisions!  That's assuming all the TVs are that size, some might be larger, some might be smaller, but its a darn good guess.  I'm willing to bet if time travel is possible, it requires a whole lot more power than that, though.  Ten million is a whole lot of televisions, but its still not that significant in a more time-space bending sort of sense.

I'll mention also that creating unique, custom things of all sorts is something I do well and I do accept comission work on occasion.  ;-)

"Yeah Doc, but why a DeLorean?"

So, stay tuned in and I'll share of my hare-brained ideas, modifications, creations and general electronic tomfoolery with you.  Hang on, its going to be a geeky ride.