Anyone build their own bowling lane?

[madhav1A]

in begining every body needs their own lane,i thought the same but where to get the space,money

[AZBowla]

I don't have the space or money for a full size lane, but what about a practice surface for releases and such? I was wondering how long of a "lane" I would need to work on my approach and the release. I'm thinking if I had a simulated lane surface long enough to go a foot or so past the first arrows that would be good for practice. It could just be a sheet of laminate that I would lay on the floor, and then place a large padded box to catch the ball in at the other end. Anyone ever build something like that?

I also found a 1/10th scale set of pins and a ball (more like a marble, lol) at the dollar store the other day so for fun I'm going to make a scale lane to go with them. It'll be about 5 inches wide by 6 feet long, lol. The kids will love it. I'll put up a pic when I get around to getting this done.

[75lockwood]

I don't have the space or money for a full size lane, but what about a practice surface for releases and such? I was wondering how long of a "lane" I would need to work on my approach and the release. I'm thinking if I had a simulated lane surface long enough to go a foot or so past the first arrows that would be good for practice. It could just be a sheet of laminate that I would lay on the floor, and then place a large padded box to catch the ball in at the other end. Anyone ever build something like that?

I also found a 1/10th scale set of pins and a ball (more like a marble, lol) at the dollar store the other day so for fun I'm going to make a scale lane to go with them. It'll be about 5 inches wide by 6 feet long, lol. The kids will love it. I'll put up a pic when I get around to getting this done.

if you just want to work on form and and even consistency you only really need a lane that goes just past the arrows, after that you could just put some pillows or maybe even rig up a ball return. it would be neat to build something like this. (i still don't have enough room) LOL

[AZBowla]

if you just want to work on form and and even consistency you only really need a lane that goes just past the arrows, after that you could just put some pillows or maybe even rig up a ball return. it would be neat to build something like this. (i still don't have enough room) LOL

If I really had the money to do this right, I'd build a lane as you described, along with a motion capture system of some sort (such as an xbox kinect, there's been a good amount of homebrew stuff made with those) and then write a computer program to read how fast the ball was moving, how many revs, etc and then use that information as inputs into a bowling sim. You could then see the results on the screen as the virtual ball takes over and travels down the lane where your actual ball left off. Imagine the possibilities for pro-shops, home enthusiasts, etc. I wonder how hard it would be to build something like that... hmmmmmm......

[noeymc]

we found the the computer guy for bills bowling lanes =D

[AZBowla]

I'm thinking this would still be at least a grand to put together the prototype. I would need a kinect, a dedicated PC, a flat panel TV and then the actual lane surface and ball trap. It would have to all be built into a cabinet of some sort so it could absorb the impact of the ball and not damage the PC and monitor mounted above the lane.

Just imagine the possibilities though! I could even have the computer simulate different balls based on the bowlingball.com perfect scale so if you wanted to know how you'd do with a new ball, you could just tell the program the weight and hook rating of the ball and get a good idea of how it would work for you. This would be quite the project!

[scottymoney]

In all that you have said AZ, being an IT guy and doing my own techy stuff. The hard part is the program. I am sure building the lane and the ball "catch" system would be easy. Getting it to translate to the SIM system is the tough part.
It is a great idea and a similar idea to the golf simulators.
I am going to take to Google and check there has to be something like this idea already.

[scottymoney]

Damn those Chinese always making things happen!
http://yaokun.en.made-in-china.com/p...Simulator.html

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/53...d_bowling.html

[75lockwood]

Damn those Chinese always making things happen!
http://yaokun.en.made-in-china.com/p...Simulator.html

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/53...d_bowling.html

I've bowled on one of these before, Playdium has them. there ok, but not accurate at all, from what i could tell it only translated to the sim based on where the ball hit the backmat, if you tried to hook on it it would end up with a corner hit

[AZBowla]

In all that you have said AZ, being an IT guy and doing my own techy stuff. The hard part is the program. I am sure building the lane and the ball "catch" system would be easy. Getting it to translate to the SIM system is the tough part.
It is a great idea and a similar idea to the golf simulators.
I am going to take to Google and check there has to be something like this idea already.

Yep, but as Lockwood said, they're made by guys who are obviously not bowlers, so when you hook the ball the program has no idea what you're doing. Plus the one you found is $15K. That's a bit outside of my budget at the moment. They look friggin' sweet though. If money were no object, I'd buy one of these as the starting point for this project. Of course, if money were no object I'd also live in a mansion and would probably have my own actual bowling lanes, lol!

I think the Kinect would be key for this project, as it is easily obtainable, relatively inexpensive and you can download a windows based SDK for it. I'm sure with some tweaks I could have it reading the arc and speed of a bowling ball in a day or two. Without getting into the specifics of it, it would simply be a matter of taking a series of images of the entire lane surface as the ball is thrown and comparing them in the program. The program could identify the ball in each image and based on where it is on the lane in each image, it could calculate the speed of the ball and based on the arc it has as it travels across the lane bed, extrapolate where that arc would end in the virtual world. Add some 3D models of the lane, the pins, a ball and plug the appropriate values (weight, speed, arc, etc) into a physics library and Bob's your uncle. I'm simplifying this big time of course, but that's the basic idea.

PC hardware is also relatively cheap to obtain. You wouldn't need a real powerhouse of a machine to render the graphics and read the data from the kinect. As for a lane bed, if I got lucky I might be able to find some old lanes for sale online or I could just buy a sheet of laminate flooring for the lane surface, that should be good enough to simulate the front part of a bowling lane. The most expensive part honestly would be a flat panel monitor big enough to span the lane like the Chinese one has.

As for programming, that's where I'd come in That's what I went to school for. I currently work more as a data analyst than a programmer but I have written several PC games and have even written an app for Android. If I had the hardware I could get the software to talk to it, no problem. It would just take me a few days to get it all talking and to get the physics down.

All I lack is the money to make it happen. Sigh. Maybe in a year or two I can scrape together the funds for something like this - I currently have too many other priorities for my money at the moment. Until then, it's just a dream.