I happen to own a physical pong table. Everyone loves it. [0] There is something magical about material and only-does-one-thing instantiations of digital things.
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I am really looking forward to a flat table top screen consisting of millions of magnetically-controlled vertical-extruding rod pixels, with actual color controlled pixels along their length. For an amazing table display/extrusion of D&D dungeons and terrain, for miniatures.
A little sensor ability, and when the extrusion "scrolls" laterally, it could create little lips that move the miniatures too, so they stay "in place". And move NPCs around at the DMs direction. Now turn of the room lights, and use the light pixels not just for color, but for lighting effects like wall lamps flickering, add spooky position-distributed sounds...
That has to be coming soon, right?
Some part of me wants to describe it Claude, iterate, and say "Now polish that design, economically optimize the parts, link in the supply chain, and ship me the first review unit." That has to be coming soon, right?
The lines separating planes of reality, they are a blurring, quickly.
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I like the way you think.
Lol, this is the way to do hobbies
I think I would have tried mechanical keyboarding switches that can take an LED and a clear keycap. Not really the same effect, but you could probably have gotten out to 24x24 for the same price.
A grid of capacitive touch sensors could be printed directly on the pcb, bringing down costs by a degree of magnitude. Real switches are much more satisfying though.
Would you be able to use the LEDs as light sensors and eliminate the switch component entirely? Maybe a tubular shield over each LED so it doesn't interact with others around it then covering it with your finger could be read as toggling the state?
In my case a $300 camera that produces worse photos than an old flagship $50 camera from eBay
Now that would be simulating life witg life.