[section33]

Right now I'm working on adding LED + DMX DJ light control - I kinda want to be able to order LED strips to "chase" a ball as it goes down the lane or back up the return. I plan on triggering laser-light shows and such with the DMX controller.

Eventually, I want to allow a customer walk up to the lane, tap to pay and start bowling immediately, too. Kiosk-ize bowling alleys, yknow?

I'm pumped. So much room for activities!

[hinkley]

Tap to pay probably doesn't help with getting people into the alley but probably helps with 'one more game'.

Your beginners have to come for shoes anyway, and the pointer to which lanes to take (you don't want them taking a lane at 6:30 that's reserved at 7)

[pants2]

At least you could display a message that says "this lane is reserved. Open lanes: 6, 7"

[6_7]

I'm sorry which lanes are open again?

[six_seven]

:)

[stasomatic]

Did you really just claim a username to reply? Love it, someone’s more bored than me. 9-10.

[stuaxo]

Available lanes are lit green and reserved are red ?

(Or something more complex)

[sleepybrett]

This is interesting, i built similar for retail environments, oneoffs for events or windows or whatnot. I'm sure you could probably get away with a few terrible webcams per lane for ball tracking it's pretty much a perfect environment. A totally flat level lit are with very little noise with one circular blob moving through it. Might be an issue if you do the ever popular blacklight lanes night bowl thing, maybe just a switch to look for light blobs instead of dark blobs ;)

An NFC system for tap to play should be a pretty straight forward proposition as well on open hardware. Have tags, tie their unalterable ID numbers back to a credit card/account and you are good to go. Start it with your regulars, league players if you have them, whatnot. You can also tie that back to league scoring. A few lanes at a time.

I'm excited for you, this is a super fun project with endless sidequests.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Have you ever written online about your projects? This stuff is endlessly fascinating to me. And your suggestion about a webcam makes me think about a problem a client and I had a couple of years ago that was never solved. It would be a completely controlled visual environment, so an ESP-cam just be the ticket if he's still interested.

[sleepybrett]

clients used to have stuff on their sites, i used to keep a private portfolio, but its been years and i do platform stuff now. Hobby shit like this on the side for my own amusement, when i can find the time.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

RFID tags in the heels of the bowling shoes, tied to the users account. Implant a reader in a spot by the lane - stomp to play!

[robocat]

Hopefully you can synch the light flashes to the ball rotation:

1: maybe make the ball look like it isn't rolling - or even backspinning

2: perhaps it could you make the amount of side-spin or other spin more obvious to help learning

Maybe hard to read the ball rotation accurately: even if the ball was marked with dots or bands that help?

[TylerE]

That sounds quite hazardous to anyone who happens to be epileptic.

[RichardHesketh]

Dunno where you live, but according to this (https://www.epilepsy.com/stories/shedding-light-photosensiti...) from a US charity: About 3 to 5 percent of the 2.7 million Americans with epilepsy (approximately 100,000 individuals) are photosensitive. That's a lot, but the chances of one walking in to that bowling alley are likely negligible. Photosensitive epileptics are highly likely to be aware of their condition and avoid risky environments in any case.

[TylerE]

Why make a recreational activity "risky" when it has zero reason to be?

[luma]

Hell yeah brother, this sounds like a fantastic project with a lot of room to dig into fun things with the double extra bonus of other people having fun with the result. Now you have me shopping for a bowling alley :D

[kci225]

Ugh, there is a four lane bowling alley right near me for sale for $100,000 or so. Now I’m further tempted.

[quietsegfault]

Buy it! What else are you doing with your money?

[kci225]

Kids.

[jkestner]

You mean, unpaid labor!

I did the books for my mom's business through high school, which prevented me from being a complete disaster as an adult.

[cootsnuck]

You telling me your kids don't want a bowling alley?

[tonyarkles]

I'll throw out two quick suggestions for you:

- DMX kinda sucks but it's manageable. Cabling isn't cheap, it really wants shielded 120 ohm cable. If you do go that route, don't cheap out and use Mic cable or Cat-5, you'll be chasing ghosts forever.

- However... Art-net is an absolutely brain dead simple protocol that you can run over WiFi or ESP-Now if you don't care about it being perfect, or over Ethernet with an ESP32 with an Ethernet PHY or a Teensy or similar. I'm serious, you can implement it in an afternoon. Lots of COTS lighting controllers can talk Art-net, and you'll be amazed at how trivial it is to make a Python script to blast out the appropriate UDP packets.

- sACN is the new kid on the block for this stuff though and it's a little more complex. Not to shill LLMs... I hadn't actually heard of it before, Claude mentioned it and then one-shotted both a server (ESP32-side) and a test client (Python). There were a couple little bugs, but about two hours from never having heard of the protocol to having existing COTS lighting design software talking to it was pretty dope.

The other annoy bit with DMX: it's 250kbaud RS485, so it's not always trivial to just make a USB-serial-RS485 adapter that will actually run at that baud rate. With the Art-net/sACN approach, it is trivial to get an ESP32 or similar to run at that baudrate and drive the RS485 DE pin correctly as well.

Enjoy!

[esikich]

"Don't use mic cables"

I've used mic cables for 1000+ shows over 20+ years with no issues. I guess most of my runs have been at most 100-200 feet if distance is the issue. Wireless/wifi controllers are the only things I've had consistent problems with.

[20after4]

UDP rules for this sort of thing. Art-net sounds very similar to OSC¹ and that's a good thing.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_Control

[tonyarkles]

Yup, they're definitely cousins. The only reason I didn't mention OSC is because you're not going to have the same ecosystem of existing open-source and commercial lighting control software available. OSC is fabulous for controlling all sorts of things and nails that COTS software compatibility layer for lots of other live production scripting stuff. (e.g. if you implement OSC on an ESP32 you can control what it's doing from an existing iPad app)

[huskyr]

Can affirm Art-net is supereasy to implement indeed. One thing you shouldn't skimp on is the DMX controller. I've used DMX to USB controllers in the past, but those have lots of driver issues. The better ones operate over Ethernet and you can just use UDP. I've been using a Showtec box, but i'm sure there are other alternatives as well.

[mixmastamyk]

Best post in a lonnnng time. Need any help? I have some dmx/dj experience from my days in digital signage.

[brcmthrowaway]

Oh man, Id love to find cheap surplus digital signs

[dimator]

This sounds like such an amazing adventure, good luck I'm sure it will be a huge success!

[Polizeiposaune]

How are you handling bowling shoe rental?

[ErrantX]

Nowhere near the OP (UK) but I've noticed a lot of fun-only lanes arent bothering to rent shoes and just let you wear whatever you have.

[semi-extrinsic]

Never understood the need to wear extremely uncomfortable and ill-fitting shoes just to throw a ball. Always seemed like a way to jack the price up.

Sure, professional bowlers use specialised shoes. Professional footballers and professional runners and cyclists and golfers and tennis players and skateboarders and ... do as well. But if you do any one of these activities at a low enough frequency and/or level that you're not buying your own specialised shoes, whatever sneakers you have will do just fine.

[abanana]

It's because the way the sole slides is an integral part of bowling the ball. You can't play "properly" without a proper sliding bowling shoe.

I was a little surprised when the local bowling centres stopped bothering to make everyone use the proper shoes. I get what you're saying about playing casually, but when I last went bowling with colleagues, and won comfortably, and others were asking for tips because they just can't roll the ball properly, but won't try proper shoes, they tried to wind me up by telling me I was "cheating" by using the proper shoes that are offered for anyone who wants one - I can't win :)

[semi-extrinsic]

Appreciate the good answer. Out of curiosity, ofder of magnitude how much would a person need to be bowling to get good enough that choice of shoe matters?

[somenameforme]

If you mean bowling shoe vs non-bowling shoe (as opposed to exact brand/type of bowling shoe), then they matter a lot even for a complete beginner. In a normal throw you're going to have a bit of momentum moving up to the lane and then release. You need to slide on your feet when you do this. In this [1] video go frame by frame at 12 seconds (or any time he bowls), you'll see his left foot in particular slide several inches during his throw. It's more subtle, but there's also a significant slide with his right foot as it goes across.

If you did this in tennis shoes, or any shoe with proper soles, the friction would cause your feet to stick and it'd be simply impossible. Socks would be much better than normal shoes, but then you have the opposite problem of too little friction and it's difficult to maintain control. Bowling shoes aren't like running or something where a pro runner is going to have some absurdly expensive pro shoe that improves his time by a fraction of a percent. They're much closer to something like ice skates for ice skating.

And yeah that's a pro with perfect perform, but even a beginner who's not just walking up to the lane, stopping, and throwing, is going to have to deal with sliding. It's just part of the game.

[1] - https://youtu.be/_qh4yOwCgOg?t=12

[fn-mote]

> to get good enough that choice of shoe matters

Bowling shoe vs running shoe? As soon as you’re trying to get better, the shoes matter a lot. They let you use the established techniques.

Bowling shoe vs socks? Never tried it, but I’m going to guess once you can break 100 that socks don’t cut it.

[bluGill]

Socks with no shoes are good enough for amateurs. Maybe even better than the worst bowling shoes. I'm not sure where the level of shoes matters is crossed, but socks gets that a lot farther than street shoes.

[tmh88j]

Mostly to prevent damage and minimize maintenance + cleanup. Dirty shoes can mess with the oiling and rocks lodged in soles can gouge the floor.

[evan_]

Maybe they could issue those disposable over-the-shoe booties they make you wear at home showings

[Jolter]

Those are no fun to a customer. I’d much rather wear the loaner shoes.

[KennyBlanken]

In the US they're just slippery enough to keep you from wrenching your ankle, the bowling lane knows they will have clean soles, and the soles won't damage the floor.

[mixmastamyk]

Hmm, thought they needed to slide. Like formal dance shoes, the opposite of sneakers.

[Projectiboga]

Reinforced toes? That might be a reason.

[section33]

We just charge a flat rate with shoes included. We do $5 / person or $25 for a whole hour for larger groups. Wanted to take some of the advanced calculus out of the price of bowling, yknow?

[mypalmike]

My local bowling alley charges $130 for shoes and 1 hour of bowling for 4 people off-peak. That scales up to $220 peak rates (e.g. Saturday night). It’s in the middle of a major city so it’s a different market of course, but the pricing difference is striking. No pun intended.

[Barbing]

Lucky Strike across from San Francisco’s baseball stadium prices like that, ouch.

[tclancy]

What is wrong with you, you’re going to ruin capitalism not caring about maximizing profits.

[Crunchified]

In capitalism, any intentional non-maximization of profits is philanthropy. Nothing wrong with that.

[section33]

I did a capitalism, but I messed it all up!

[Neekerer]

spare me your humanitarian sarcasm

[tjoff]

Isn't that included in the lane price? Always has been for me.

[bee_rider]

I think they mean the physical process of handling the shoes. At most places you rent your land and get your shoes at the same counter, basically in one transaction, which seems difficult to handle with a kiosk.

[section33]

Totally - we've got notifications wired in though, so our counter instantly knows "lane so and so needs such and such shoe sizes"

[KennyBlanken]

You're removing human interaction, though.

Nerds seem to forget that entertainment venues and sports are social spaces, interaction with staff matters, and is one of the more distinguishing features of a venue.

Unless you've got someone walking up and down the lanes introducing themselves as the manager/owner/whatever...

[Johnny555]

If I go out bowling with friends, I'm there to socialize with my friends. If I rent the lane from a Kiosk, I'm fine with that being the end of the transaction I don't need the manager to come introduce himself.

[section33]

You're not wrong, though I will say that I haven't forgotten it's a social space. The social aspect is why I bought it in the first place. In my mind, the kiosk terminal is there for convenience. We get a lot of people who A) don't want to interact with us more than necessary or B) sometimes people buy one game or one hour, then decide to stay -much- longer.

My thinking on that is, don't make the customer get up if they don't need / want to.

Long story short, the intent of the kiosk isn't to delete human interaction. Honestly, I implemented it as a way to summon servers or bowling mechanics, and any self-service options I could think of as-needed. One doesn't have to use the kiosk, they're just there as a convenience thing.

[bluGill]

Most people don't know that the real money is food and alcohol. Buy pizza and drinks for everyone and they should throw the lane in for free.

[abanana]

> one of the more distinguishing features of a venue

It depends a lot on whether your customer base is made up mainly of one-off walk-in casuals, or regulars. Getting to know the regulars, and having a chat with them, can improve the feel of being in work for the staff themselves, as well as providing a more friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

The OP described this particular case as being in a small town, with not many other options for entertainment, i.e. a small captive audience. You could say the customers don't have much else to do so it doesn't matter if you're a miserable git, they'll still come. But just being friendly and chatty makes all the difference to a lot of people, and can help you build a loyal audience of core customers who'll choose your place over the few alternatives, will keep coming, keep bringing more friends and family, and sometimes even support your business in unexpected ways.

[tclancy]

How did you read everything OP posted and come to that conclusion?

[tjoff]

Ah, most of what I've seen it's just an open area everyone goes to and does it themselves.

Which I like because I always have to try a few sizes to get one that actually fits.

[nomel]

Which could be removed, which I, a customer, would very much enjoy. Bowling prices are absolutely insane these days. Haven't been in over 10 years. Related, nearly all of the bowling lanes in my area are empty, except for birthdays/work events.

[quietsegfault]

My local center in a big northeast us city is very cheap during the week, and reasonably priced on the weekends. Surprisingly, even their food and alcohol is priced lower than what you’d expect - cheaper than the sports bar down the block. No idea how they make money, but my kids love it and I love being able to get a good beer while I spend time bowling with my kids.

[bruce511]

I think this is the key metric. Get people in the door.

Sure you can jack up prices on food and drink. Sure you can fleece the people who do come, but everyone who stops coming "because it's too expensive" is lost forever.

The alternative is to create a space people want to come to. Yes sell food & drink. Being "good value" helps that. Being expensive fights it.

While yes, the flashy electronics is cool, do people come for that? Does it make it more fun? I just saw the ball with my own two eyes. Does an animation make it better?

What brings in a family? Work colleagues? Teenagers on a date? What brings in more competitive folks? Is there progression? What makes my friend group go once a week? Why do housewives want to hang out there at 11am? How to catch the bored teenagers at 3pm in the afternoon?

It's not even just about bowling. Can you create a space people want to come to?

[robocat]

> Can you create a space people want to come to?

Over many years I've tried to work out where a positive vibe comes from (mostly at food and beverage places).

My current theory is that a good vibe is an emergent behaviour from the customers.

Obviously poor managers/owners can make a toxic place (but negativity is a completely different issue from creating positivity). I've witnessed many owners think they can create a vibe, but then crash and burn (especially when taking over somewhere with an existing vibe). They often don't seem to understand how they failed (maybe have excuses that don't ring true). Starting or buying a business requires ego, but too much ego leads to mistaken self-belief.

I'm sure a wise manager can encourage a vibe to grow, but actually it seems like the customers drive the process.

Maybe it's just a human thing that like-minded people create spaces for themselves.

I watched the vibe at one place radically shift from tradies to more gentrified customers. Same owners and staff. I also suspect I'm just not good at it myself, so I lack the skills to even see why someone is good (and might not even understand if they try and explain to me).

Anyone else tried to grok how a good ambience grows? Is there some standard for learning it?

[robbak]

That really speaks to his initial comments of his being in a 'R&R desert'.

[dpkirchner]

The last few times I tried to go bowling I was turned away because I was the wrong kind of customer. I didn't know when my kind was allowed (it wasn't on the outdoor signs). Layer I learned the right times but they were all weirdly inconvenient.

[topato]

1. Can we stack two lanes on top of each other, please? Make homemade bunklanes?

2. Something about preventing people from rubbing the bowling balls on your precious lanes.

3. Laser light shows + Liquor license = Bowling Alley Wine Mixer

Sorry, I got overly excited by your reference. I say that so GD much, at least once a month, for nearly 20 years now haha. SOOO much room for activities!

[dd8601fn]

Sounds like amazing fun. Good luck with it.

[Aboutplants]

I love this idea!