How a Bowling Alley Works

[Abaft6]

omg this so weird. when the guy said the computer crashed my shockwave plug in crashed. no joke

[rittboy8u]

@Abaft6 Haha that's awesome :) Gotta love Windows!

[JeremyB787]

Fantastic work! Thanks for uploading!

[rittboy8u]

@JeremyB787 Thank you!

[dkar2006]

lol windows xp. i would've lost it if it was windows ME.

[rittboy8u]

@dkar2006 Haha heck yeah! :)

[jrpacman21]

if a pinsetter was that slow, I would pay only half of what the price is

[nadamejorquehacerTV]

is that the music from mafia 1

[rittboy8u]

@nadamejorquehacerTV Yep!

[sandheepkumarvb]

Nice one!!

[YOUMADSTAYMAD]

Thanks bro :D always wondered how they worked. Apparently you got a few things wrong but that's ok : I just wanted to know how the pins were reloaded.

[OsoGP]

I always wondered how they worked, this was very neat!

[rittboy8u]

@OsoGP Hey thank you man! I appreciate it!

[JeremyB787]

Although it's the mixture of Brunswick and AMF pinspotter, you've done a brilliant work, pal. Keep it up!!!

[orirubin1]

cool!

[ruscitizen10]

thank you, rittboy!

[jw1005]

nice animation 

[jw1005]

Hey how did you do the animation?

[rittboy8u]

@jw1005 I looked at a lot of behind the scenes videos of bowling alleys here on YouTube and built all the geometry using 3ds max, imported that into Cinema 4D where I textured and animated everything. I then brought the animations into Adobe After Effects and added sound effects/audio.

[tribalmasters]

I like it!!! The music is good too! I thought the part where the pins were going onto that conveyor belt was especially cute, the squeaking sound and the way pins appeared after it made me feel all warm inside :D

[rittboy8u]

@tribalmasters Haha thanks man I appreciate it! Glad you noticed all the small stuff ;)

[Joocenator]

its kinda creepy lookin when the background is all black... it gives me the chills... :s

[rittboy8u]

@weatherpatrick92 Hahaha! Thank you for finding the humor in my animation lol. Seems like everyone that has commented gives me crap cuz I didn't illustrate how it works properly! It's supposed to just give a general idea so I'm glad you liked it at least ;)

[Shadow09160490]

10people think bowling alleys are ran by slaves

(of any color...not rasict)

[MsStylos]

Chuck Norris scored 57 points At the moment

[angelicfruitcake801]

how did they do it in the old days, ie 80s.. im old :~(

[OiiGFX]

made in cinema 4d ?

[slb785]

Facts and educated work FAIL

[RobloxiaOwns]

Great job dude, best bowling animation I've ever seen!

[321flare]

love your videos very talented. rotary motor is amazing!

[jarvin007]

how did u make this

[ktekx]

Very nice animation! I recently had the awesome chance of going in the back of a bowling alley to fix an unrelated computer problem (I'm a computer tech). The alley's mechanic there gave me a tour. One thing I thought was clever, and you left out, was the pin orientation setting plate. The plate was formed in a way that orients the pin the correct way before it is loaded into the hopper. Such a simple and elegant solution. They designed it so well, it was bad business for them!

[shakyla2k9]

Im going bowling today cause its my best friends b day :D :D :D :D

[Jeffreylb94]

Cool!

[Beethoven2949]

thx for the vidio i added it to my favorite i allways wonderd how the alley works

[rittboy8u]

@Beethoven2949 Thanks man :)

[golferadam9]

I like how you combined both the Brunswick and AMF systems. The problem with older AMF models is that pins get stuck in the lift system. In the older Brunswick machines, the balls and pins jam up in the bottom of the wheel. Good job, nice representation for little expert knowledge of how it all works!

[pinboyamf]

kind of amf/brunswick pinsetter mix

[TheDjs101]

the neeed to make a vidieo game like this where you can control your own center

[NLEDJ101]

some one should make a game like this were people can be the owner of the center turn on lanes make reservations fix machiens kinda like roller coaster tycoon 3

[NLEDJ101]

some one should make a game called bowling manger and you check in people and mange the bowling center

[jjdadude]

wow i thought this was gunna be boring

but i couldnt turn it off :L

[rizash]

ha, holy hybrid of an AMF and brunswick machine.... ask online and you can find TONS of info (and videos) of AMF machines in action, and brunswick machines in action.... while your vision is far from any real machine, its pretty typical for what most people think is back there. (most people think a few hundred moving parts, not a few thousand).

[drake316]

I'm an A2 mechanic, and you have the basic idea down, but SO many things are wrong, lol. good video though. If you want some help making another in the future let me know.

[EdmDude]

I was bowling out of an place with A2s running at A speed. good working machine, the guy said they were around 35 years old.

[Rob98148]

There ARE 2 ball detect sensors on Quibica (sp?) automatic scoring systems, however, in the video, they seem to have showed an AMF Ball lift and pit conveyor with a Brunswick A-2 pinsetter (No lift rods and no ball accellerator) and a FLAT belt in the cross conveyor instead of 2 cross conveyor belts... OOps??? :-/

[rittboy8u]

Please read the video description. I wasn't going for an EXACT replica of a particular type of alley. I have never worked at a bowling alley center so I wasn't able to capture every detail. Hence the huge computer kiosk in the back with an oversized power shut-off handle and the computer running Windows XP...oops.

[TheBradyarnold]

@rittboy8u If you weren't going for an "exact" replica then you should have titled the video "Kinda How a Bowling Alley Works" lol! Nice video regardless, I'm also a 3d animator and I know how hard that stuff is.

[Turtle3000GT]

Rittman Lanes? Ha there used to be a Rittman Lanes here in Ohio, place was a dump, been closed for years

[wiesman1234]

i bowl at northwest lanes in fairfield ohio

[pwkn0]

The computer crashed because the have Windows. lol

[rittboy8u]

@pwkn0 Haha that's right! =)

[RZRonTDU]

@rittboy8u yea not a fan of the windows diss. Especially sense they most likely run a server not a computer for each lane... Makes no sense... There is nothing wrong with windows... At least a windows crashes and restarts mac just give you a freeze of death you have to force quit and when you do well there you go all the files you were currently working on are gone...

[rittboy8u]

@RZRonTDU It was a joke man. Have a sense of humor.

[RZRonTDU]

@rittboy8u I know but i belive i just stated fact lol =] Itried apple pc's but they were crap I stick with linux and windows =]

[RZRonTDU]

@rittboy8u Good video though

[jerster8]

fucking windows 98 =)

[masteircheef]

@pwkn0 thats amazing... windows xp... not vista :o

[Soccerkid2005]

There are a lot of things wrong with this clip. First off, you are mixing an AMF pinsetter with a Brunswick pinsetter....they operate diffrently from eachother, I should know because I work at a bowling center.

[andyjv2000]

You have a lot of things wrong with this. The infrared sensor is after the rake. If it was in front of the rake, a slow moving ball would hit the rake because it doesn't know how fast the ball is moving. You also forgot to add that the curtain in back of the pin deck releases the rake just in case the laser doesn't. Also, the camera is just for scoring purposes. The scissors in the pin setter will contract whether there are pins there or not. Then it can tell whether or not it needs to re-rack.

[Soccerkid2005]

I work at a bowling center....and the sensor is ahead of the rake because we have the Qubica scoring system, so anyone who uses Qubica, the sensors are in front of the rake and are a part of the camera .

[janchapman1969a]

@andyjv2000

in 1987 when the infrared beams were first used for ball detect in Brunswick GS-10 pinsetters, the beams were 1 1/2 feet in front of the sweep (there was a 2 second delay after the beam was broken before the sweep would drop) . and believe it or not, I was the first mechanic to prove to Brunswick that a ball rolled slowly enough could hit the sweep, and it only took me one attempt to do this, and 2 weeks later, Brunswick came back to my center to move the ball detect beams.

[drad85]

@andyjv2000

I don't about the sensor after the rake. With Brunswick, the sensor is in front of the rake to show the mph and allows about 6 to 8 seconds after the ball hits the pins to sweep. A child can throw it one mile an hour, but if the ball doesn't have enough power to trigger the curtain, then the sensor will let the sweeper down to sweep the ball and the pins to the back.

The newer Brunswick sensors triggers the sweeper to come down after passes the path of the rake.

[coolbrotherj]

@andyjv2000 read the description. he hasnt wored in a bowling center so he wouldnt know and was going on basi knowledge

[MrJasonh89]

@andyjv2000 Yeah and you also forgot that he combined different features of Brunswick and AMF. Our AMF center doesn't have the 'curtain in the back of the pin deck', also known as a cushion start switch for people who have any experience, because we use the ball detectors. Oh and by the way A's and A2's use the camera to detect standing pins and the deck doesn't attempt a re-spot when none are left - same with newer AMF machines. So before criticizing, maybe don' t be an idiot.

[ben80s08]

and this all happins with in a couple seconds lol cool

[bigkellyr]

Very nice animation. I used to work at Glen Bowl Lanes in Glendive, MT. back in 1981-82 while going to Dawson Community College. Our lanes weren't quite that fancy and instead of the conveyer belt thing we had a shaker floor that shook the ins to the wheel and the ball got picked up by the wheel and when it got deposited to the ball return channel it went between two spinning things that shot down through the tube to the ball rack. This was fun to watch although a little slow in places. Thanks.

[rid18b]

LOL...even i din kno it was so complicated..!!!

thankyou for the good animation

[jmillerdesign]

Holy cow I didn't know this is how it worked! Golly jee!

[AbbyDavid08]

Most of it's true. On a Brunswick A2 system, the ball return is powered by another wheel before the pin wheel, its smaller than the pin wheel. The ball gets lifted up by that wheel and then goes on a track which goes back to the player. Neat animation.

[rittboy8u]

Thanks :) I only had a semester to produce this animation so I wasn't able to capture all the details.

[Tabby266]

Neat.

[shella196]

u still dont get it why does the ball turn left into the hole

[rittboy8u]

Electromagnetic pulse coming from the flux capacitor.

[shella196]

k thanx

[agentfazexx]

Why have the computer crashing part? Stupid...

[rittboy8u]

Because I have a sense of humor.

[agentfazexx]

A Bob Saget sense of humor maybe.

Pathetic.

[rittboy8u]

Man who cares, just enjoy the animation. I'm a goofy guy at heart and if you don't like it, don't watch it and leave rude comments on someone's hard work.

[hulksmash05]

cool

[Glasimonix]

lol its awesome, hey man how long you take making that render,

Greetings Jaime

[rittboy8u]

Haha there was a lot of work put into this! Over 100 hours definitely. I used a render farm to render out all the animation so it didn't end up taking very long in that regard. Most of it was the production process and research.

[rittboy8u]

Thanks the comment! Yeah I was just trying to be funny haha =) No, pinsetters run on any kind of operating systems as far as I know lol. I was making fun of the old blue screen of death from Windows XP. Yeah I kinda made a hybrid of the brunswick/AMF for explanation purposes, it's just easier to understand I think.

[SmithAbbott]

HUGH

[GavinRoskamp]

One comment:

A lot of alleys just use the weight of the ball to activate the pinsetter, which automatically goes down and when the pins go through the holes, it updates the score then instead of using a camera. It then grasps them and sweeps the others off.

[teothedemon]

I have 3 questions!!!

1st: how does the camera tell how many are left?

2nd: what does the red sensor do?

3rd: what if a pin goes in backwards in the weel?

[rittboy8u]

The camera uses special technology to see which pins and standing and which were knocked over.

When the ball rolls past the sensor, as shown in the animation, it tells the computer to snap a photo of the remaining pins and then to lower the pin table to pick up any standing pins.

Pins can go frontward or backward into the elevator wheel. When they get to the top, they are flipped the right way before dropping onto the conveyor belt.

Search for "Guts & Bolts (AMF)" video...good demonstration!

[ke3wh]

There are plenty of real vids out there, dont take this for more than entertainment value.

[asczynski1277]

Awesome!

[internationalhardman]

Thanks for creating this buddy... before now it was all a mystery!

[TallRobby]

DUDE THANKS IVE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW HOW IT WORKS srry caps

[rittboy8u]

No problem, thanks for the comment!

[ez1913]

Never seen a half Brunswick, half AMF machine before.

[Biscuitchris7again]

This is so wrong....how it really works is...There are three little leprechauns that weren't able to get their papers when they got off the ferry, so they were all told to go to the local bowling alley for work...see, Bowling is HUGE in Ireland...that's where leprechauns come from, and at their home they are used as pinsetters, one grabs the ball and hurls it back to the player, and the other two reset and manage the pins.

Good video. But, it doesn't show the truth. =)

[rittboy8u]

See...someone else told me that story and I wasn't sure which method I wanted to use in the video. The next animation I create will depict the leprechaun method for how a bowling alley works lol =)

[Dribbles101]

Very Interesting! Its amazing how a video so simple can be so awsome! 5 stars!

[rittboy8u]

Awesome! Thank you so much! =)

[BIGGREENLEAF1]

Nice video even if it is a combonation of both an AMF and Brunswick machine. One critical error though the scorer camera does not tell the machine what pins to pick up as on both machines all 10 sets of fingers open and close when picking up pins but on the AMF 82/70 or 90 the camera tells that machine if it is necessary for the table to decesend and pick up pins at all or was it a strike or gutter or 7 or 10 pin pick off only. Other than those things still a nice job.

[rittboy8u]

Thank you for clearing this up about the camera. I wasn't sure if it was exactly correct or not. I should have done a bit more research on this and explained it better in the animation. Thanks for your feedback!

[derekli04]

I hate how in this system of ball return a pin gets jammed between the ball and the return, and I have to manually call a mechanic to remove it. Throwing a spare ball sometimes helps too, I believe.

[rcman1234]

Sorry, but your machine is a combination of amf and brunswick system.

But...Great job.

[rittboy8u]

Haha yeah I am aware of that :) I intended this to be just a general demonstration of how a bowling alley works. The actual pinsetter is taken from the Brunswick style while the ball return uses the AMF gripper system. I liked how simple AMF's ball return was so I went after that style =)

[derekli04]

what about those old above-ground ball returns?

[shzaka]

I never knew that! My daughter is going to enjoy this.

[sean1121]

Great video Matt!

[rittboy8u]

Thanks Kevin! =)

[NewYorkNewbie753]

wow, that was flippin cool!!

my friend really enjoyed that to!

[rittboy8u]

Thanks guys! It was a fun animation to work on =)

[JustinPhilip84]

Great job!