while waiting around for the PSW guys last night, it seemed like a good time to test our mettle on the foosball table. we’ve witnessed rapid development of general foos skills in the office since the introduction of the table a few weeks ago, and the improvement in shot speed has been noticeable. of course, questions always remain as to the difference between actual and perceived velocity of shots, and the only way to answer the questions is by a clean, scientific, test.

here’s the test apparatus:

observe the high quality microphone inserted into the table’s feeder. bonus points if you noticed a bottle of Q20, the fooser’s friend (of course, given that the Q20 was highlighted reduces the significance of those bonus points. but they’re still yours, to love and cherish.)

so, by combining a microphone, audacity, calc.exe, a ruler and primary school physics (barely keeping my head above water here), we get a test rig that can roughly determine shot velocity. the waveform below is a recording of a “snake” from the 5-man middle bar. the shot occurs at t₀ and the ball hits the back of the goal at t₁; we’re ignoring a whole bunch of factors but the numbers matter more than their accuracy in this case as its all about boasting rights.

the easy calculation is 2.628/(t₁ – t₀)

where t₀ and _t1 are times in fractional seconds

ok, so all that aside, who are the speed freaks? bradleyj is providing page-filler with a respectable 19km/h, i’m sitting on 33km/h but haroon is currently leading with a 34km/h.

its interesting to see that the “snake” is almost twice as fast as regular shots, however we’re still finding it a little unpredictable when playing the shot. no mention yet as to what the effect (if any) the table is having on productivity… wait remind me again, was i on a project this week?