Golf-Pong Carnival Game
Spring 2024
Role
Team of four
Quinn Morris: CAD, laser cutting, construction
Description
A two-player carnival game that fuses minigolf with cup-pong. Each player putts tennis balls up a ramp past obstacles into four cups, with push-button detection and a live LCD scoreboard running a 60-second round.
Overview
Background
The assignment was to create a carnival-game that blends two existing games into one, while keeping it competitively fair for both players, and making it light enough for a single person to carry with no help.
Build
My team combined minigolf with cup-pong. One large box splits into two opposite-facing sides, each with an inclined ⅛" MDF ramp leading to four cups. Obstacle shapes and cup layouts differ side to side but are matched for difficulty. Concave momentary push buttons sit in the cups and an LCD shows the countdown and both scores.
Result
Players get 60 seconds to score as many balls as they can with homemade laser-cut clubs, and the higher score wins. Choosing tennis balls turned out to be the decision that made it work best because they hit the push buttons hard enough for reliable detection.
My contribution: CAD and laser cutting
I was responsible for every flat component: two sets of cup holes, a golf club for each player, two backboards with cutouts for the LCD, and the ramp obstacles, all drawn in AutoCAD and cut on a laser cutter.
None of it was complex, but it helped me lock down my AutoCAD and Illustrator fundamentals. I also did much of the build such as drilling, painting the walls, gluing obstacles, seating the push buttons in the cups, and working on the showcase poster.
Scoring and detection
A concave momentary push button sits at the base of each cup. A ball landing in the cup depresses it and the score increments.
The LCD runs the 60-second countdown and both players' side has its own display which are synced to one another, so nobody has to keep track mid-round.
Fair, and portable
Each side got its own obstacle shapes and cup arrangement, arranged so neither player has the easier half: different, not unequal.
Building it as a single divided box rather than two facing boards helped us keep it inside the one-person carry requirement.