I couldn’t resist and bought a large table football kicker “Tabletop Football” at a very tempting price in the Lenta hypermarket. A beautifully crafted gaming table in bright colorful packaging became a gift for February 23rd. The design of the game will just satisfy the needs of beginner kicker players. In addition, this game is an excellent occasion for friends to get together for an interesting and exciting pastime. The gaming table is delivered partially assembled. The final installation involves several steps and is done by hand. Detailed step by step instructions with photos and videos is given below.
Instructions for assembling your own board game kicker
Tabletop Football is designed for stationary installation on a gaming table or on the floor. This football model from TableTop is equipped with six game handles with 3 players each. For greater convenience of play, the platform is installed on legs, making it convenient to play this table football even on the floor. Table football is delivered unassembled. An assembly tool in the form of a key screwdriver is included in the kit. Assembling the kicker does not require special knowledge. Before assembly, remove a large bag of parts from the packaging box and check the completeness. The package should contain:
- Six bars with Chinese players (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6)
- Two short sides with gates (E1)
- Two long panels (E2)
- Playing field with artificial turf (E3)
- Two scoreboards for counting goals scored (E4)
- Four clamps for fastening the scoreboard (E5)
- Four legs (E6)
- 12 shock absorbing washers (A1)
- Six handles (A2)
- Six rod caps (A3)
- Eight self-tapping screws with a washer for fastening the strips (B1)
- Eight screws with washer and nut for securing the legs (B2)
- Six self-tapping screws for attaching handles to rods (B3)
- Two soccer balls
- Hex key - Phillips screwdriver
Big package
Key screwdriver
Assembling the kicker involves several steps.
Step 1. Using self-tapping screws B1, we connect together the two short sides E2 and the long panel E1 with our own hands. We tighten the screws with a hex key. The grooves of the sides and panels should be inside and aligned with the edges. Do not use much force to avoid turning the screw (the panels are made of MDF).
Step 2. Insert the E3 playing board into the grooves of the assembled frame.
Fastening the bar
Step 3. Install shock-absorbing washers A1 on rods T1-T6. See photo.
Step 4. Install the rods with players into the holes in panel E2. Please refer to the attached photos as a guide. Chinese players on each team must face the opposing team.
Step 5. Attach the second long panel E2 to the frame. Please note that the edges of the playing field must be in the grooves.
Step 6. Install the scoreboard. Watch the video.
Step 7. Install protective caps A3 on the edges of the rods without holes. See photos and videos.
Shock absorbing washer
Panels assembled
Installation of caps
Step 8. Sequentially fix handles A2 on the edges of the rods with holes using self-tapping screws B3.
Step 9. We sequentially install the E6 legs using two supplied B2 screws. Please note that the end of the leg must fit tightly to the plane of the playing field. See photo.
In one foreign blog, my son and I saw an idea to make a table football table.
Since my son is still 3 and a half years old and would not like to spend money on a large table football, we decided to make this toy with our own hands.
Do-it-yourself crafts for children turned out to be as easy as shelling pears) So, what did we need:
The tubes are long and thick;
Shoe box;
Pack of colorful clothespins;
Multi-colored adhesive tape;
Wooden skewers;
Scissors.
A few comments on some accessories.
1. Tubes. We bought thick tubes due to the gap in the clothespins, but if the gap in the clothespin is small, then thin tubes can be used.
The tubes must be long.
2. Multi-colored clothespins. We wanted to buy wooden clothespins and decorate them with decorative tape, but they weren’t in the store, so plastic ones worked.
3. Wooden skewers. Wooden skewers are needed to seal the tubes, but if you can find smooth wooden sticks instead of tubes it will be great. We didn't find this in the supermarket.
4. Shoe box. We have a box of children's shoes, so it turned out to be mini-football. Based on my experience, it would be better to take a box from adult shoes, it will be longer and the field for playing will be larger.
5. Multi-colored tape. This is a simple miracle. My son had fun decorating the box (he chose the design himself, so we ended up with a football field like this). We took Fashion Angels tape. You can also decorate with multi-colored paper. I forgot glue at work, so everything that doesn't get done is all for the better. Danya then used tape to decorate not only the football, but also his toy boxes, table, and even wanted to decorate my mobile phone.
My son and I had a wonderful time. This activity took only half an hour and of course you can imagine how much delight the child had from the fact that he and his mother made football.
And here are our emotions after playing football :)
P.S. Videos and photos taken on mobile phone- We apologize for the quality.
Crafts with children are always exciting and fun :)
Pros
Collapse- - saving money on buying table football
- smile and joy on the child’s face
- an additional opportunity to have fun with the children
To make a smart table football, we will need:
- regular stupid table football - 1 pc.,
- Arduino controller - 1 pc.,
- laser - 2 pcs.,
- photoresistor - 2 pcs.,
- several interested people
- free weekend.
Background
In our company, most of the employees are not averse to playing a game of table football. Rather, they even love him very much and, of course, the matter is not limited to one party. Therefore, at lunch and in the evening, a crowd of IT specialists gathers around the table, waiting for their turn.
And then, one day, when we were completely tired of the confusion with the queue, an idea came to our minds:
- Let's make an electronic queue!
- And so that the table itself counts the goals!
- And he could determine which of us is cooler!
- And let him send a text message that he’s free!
And everyone ran away to Google.
Day 1
On Friday evening, a group of like-minded football fans gathered near the hero of the occasion - the table - for a meeting. We shared what we had Googled, decided on the basic requirements and technologies, assigned roles, and turned the microcontroller we begged from the authorities over in our hands.
Day 2
First thing on Saturday morning, we unscrewed the table. To teach him to track goals scored, we attached 2 lasers and 2 photoresistors to the gate and an Arduino controller in the middle. The system they came up with is this: when a ball hits the area between the laser and the photoresistor, the controller records the change in voltage on the sensor. Thus, a change in voltage is a consequence of a change in resistance across the photoresistor. The circuit diagram is shown below.
Despite the extreme simplicity of the system, we still had to face some problems. Firstly, changing the lighting in the room with the football table could cause false positive sensor alarms. Secondly, particularly strong vibrations of the table during the game could lead to mechanical damage to system components.
The first problem was eliminated by recalibrating the photoresistor every time the game was started. The second solution was even simpler - with the help of a screwdriver, superglue and, of course, blue electrical tape, all components of the system were securely fixed.
Arduino:
Lasers:
At the same time, work began on the software component of the project. First of all, we specified the requirements:
- Game modes 1x1, 2x2.
- Player levels.
- Collecting player achievements.
- Maintaining personal and team ratings.
- Game soundtrack.
I must say that we are very lucky that our creative designer also likes to play table football. Therefore, by lunchtime we already had some nice mockups in our hands. Looking ahead, let's show what came out of them:
Development was carried out in parallel along three branches:
- Client side - Angular.js, Bootstrap.
- We created the main pages of the application, designed it, and implemented interaction with the server via Rest API and Socket.io. We adapted the layout for mobile devices.
- Server side - Node.js, Socket.io, MongoDB.
- We created the project structure, developed a data model, configured the relationship between the client and the server, and the differentiation of access rights. We implemented logic for calculating statistics, collecting achievements, and maintaining ratings. We notified the client about emerging events using Socket.io.
- Relationship between Arduino and server.
- We wrote a layer between the controller and the server.
Here it should be noted that we decided to combine business with pleasure. Therefore, we chose technologies unfamiliar to the project participants in order to improve their skills at the same time.
In general, there is no point in writing in more detail about the first and second points. Despite the fact that the development of these parts took most of the time, there were no major tasks here, everything was quite trivial. Therefore, let's move on to the most delicious part - the interaction between the server and our smart table.
Of course, it would be more correct to organize wireless data transfer between Adruino and the server, using wi-fi or bluetooth modules to interact with the server. Or even use a Raspberry Pi as a server for our application. But we didn’t have the first, nor the second, nor the third, but we had an old computer that could still serve us as a server. Therefore, our server is connected to the table using a USB cable, and all communication between the Arduino and the server occurs through the COM port.
Arduino receives signals from the port about turning the lasers on/off and, in turn, sends signals about recorded goals to the server.
Sketch for Arduino:
Server side controller:
Here we monitor the port to which the Arduino is connected. When we receive a command, we generate one or another event. To start and stop the Arduino, we have two special functions start and stop that control turning the lasers on and off.
Event handling example:
Thus, by the end of the second day we received working basic functionality of the client and server and a ready-made layer for interaction with Arduino.
Day 3
On Sunday, all we had to do was tie all the components together and add various bonuses like in-game achievements and fun music.
This day was spent in a more creative vein, we spent less time programming, mainly coming up with player levels, achievements and music for various game events.
Finally, everything is assembled, connected, launched - it's working!
Started functional testing. Okay, okay, we played football, what can we do)
A couple of bugfixes, a small drink and...PROFIT! Smart football is ready.
Bottom line
The result is a prototype of a high-tech table football that independently records and counts goals scored, keeps a rating of players, forms a queue and, in general, makes our vacation much more convenient and interesting. We also had a great time and improved our skills, of course.
We hope the article was at least somewhat useful and will inspire you to do your own experiments. Good luck everyone!
The base of the game (see picture) is plywood measuring 1160x580x20 mm. Side walls with a height of 160 mm are also made from it. Holes are drilled in the walls through which rods will be threaded to “control” the players. The structure is held together with glue and screws, and the corners are reinforced with metal squares. To prevent the ball from getting stuck in the corners, glue triangular blocks into them.
Make the game rods to which the athlete figures are attached from a thin metal tube Ø 10 mm. Handles for them can be made of wood or plastic tubes with an internal Ø 10 mm can be used.
Holes in the side walls for the rods are made according to their outer diameter. On the opposite wall, a support is attached to each rod: a flange with a soldered tube into which the rod will be pushed.
A - playing field; B - control rod with support: 1 - support, 2 - metal plate, 3 - tube, 4 - pin, 5 - plastic sleeve. 6 - felt ring, 7 - limiter ring; B - placement of players: 1 - goalkeeper line, 2 - defenders, 3 - midfielders, 4 - forwards. X is the distance of the longitudinal movement of the rod.
Each rod has a plastic restrictive ring; the distance between him and the wall will determine the lateral movement of this row of players.
Make football player figures from 5 mm thick plywood and attach them to the rods with M3 bolts.
The main material for the manufacture of this exciting game steel plastic panels and sandwich panels. And for assembly, gluing and decoration, adhesive tapes were suitable different types and multi-colored electrical tape. Children's markers that were no longer usable also came in handy. No complicated tools were used - everything was simple and fast enough.
The basis was a ready-made coffee table 61x43 cm with a small side. The parameters of all other materials depend on the size of the table. The football field itself is made of plastic panels connected to each other with colored tape. I covered the side walls of sandwich panels with plumber's tape and pasted homemade labels of football club logos.
To make the gate, I used a mosquito net on a frame made from the same sandwich. I didn’t bother too much with the figures of football players - it’s still the same sandwich. The highlight of steel funny pictures football players. Assembly consisted of gluing the side walls with inserted rods with players and the playing field with especially strong tape. From felt-tip pens I made bushings in the side walls for the rods (760mm) and the handles themselves.
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