If you like bowling but don’t feel like picking up a heavy ball and rolling it down the lane, this is for you.
Bowling ball manufacturer 900global in San Antonio, Texas (www.900global.com), has developed a remote control bowling ball—the RC900—that changes the game of bowling into a life-size video game. This special bowling ball is guided down the lane not by the arm swing and hand release of a bowler but by the acumen of the user holding a controller that is not much different from the one used in Play Station, Xbox or other video games.
Phil Cardinale, co-CEO of 900global, said the ball is aimed at giving young children, or others who are unable to bowl because of a handicap or other physical limitation, an opportunity to compete and enjoy the game of bowling by controlling the ball’s outcome. It is also intended for anyone who wants to combine video gaming with real bowling.
Typically, young children and handicapped bowlers who cannot roll the ball down the lane roll the ball down a ramp that is placed in the center of the lane and watch as the ball rolls toward the pins. The remote control ball may be released through the same ramp, or by the individual. The difference, however, is that once the ball is on the lane, the user steers the movement of the ball with the controller toward the pins.
Young bowlers often use lane bumpers when they are bowling so that the ball doesn’t fall into the gutter. The bumpers prohibit the ball from going into either gutter because they deflect it back into the lane and toward the pins. But bumper bowling has “lost its luster,” Cardinale said.
At the ball’s core is a design patented in 2001 by a Hollywood entrepreneur with an aeronautical engineering background, Nelson Tyler. According to the patent:”A bowling ball having an internal weight whose position along a spin axis is adjustable by operation of a drive means which in turn is operative to rotate a threaded nut sleeve that supports the weight. The rotation is about a threaded, non-rotatable weight shaft that extends along the spin axis. This threadably advances the nut sleeve and the weight along the length of the weight shaft, thereby altering the center of gravity and path of the ball after it is released by the bowler.”
Simple dexterity is all that is necessary to operate the remote control ball, said Cardinale. Several military bases, as well as some bowling centers are using the ball, he added. “And we’re looking to jazz it up even more in the future by adding sound effects—think of a big blast when the ball hits the pins.” |
