We all have dreams of becoming world champions at darts. Oh, that’s just me? Anyway, if you’ve ever drunkenly stumbled through a game of bar darts and wished you had actual hand-eye coordination you’ll be happy to hear there’s now a dart board that basically plays the game for you, and lets you nail a bullseye nearly 100% of the time, as long as you can throw in its general direction. The bad news — you knew that was coming, right? — is that the board took over three years to build and required some seriously high-tech engineering to to so.
YouTuber Mark Rober just published a fantastic video showcasing the creation, which he modestly suggests required just “some engineering.” As you’ll see in the nearly seven minute clip, the device itself is actually ridiculously complex, despite its simple job.
The automatic dart board actively tracks the thrown dart, calculating its trajectory and then slides itself into place using a system of motors and sliders. When the dart is thrown, presuming the dart is at least in the right neighborhood of the board, it adjusts itself and places itself so that the bullseye is right in the center of the dart’s path.
What’s even cooler is that the board can recognize the difference between darts and is programmed to act differently based on what dart is thrown. One kind of dart will always hit the bullseye, while the other will literally never hit the board, as the board will automatically move itself out of the way for the ultimate troll job.
