Electronic Dartboard Flush Scoring Grooves
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electronic dartboards suffer from inaccurate and controversial scoring due to darts bouncing off the yellow borders, leading to unfair results and player frustration, with a significant percentage of throws not registering correctly.
Innovation Solution
Replacing the hard, plastic yellow borders with concentric circular scoring areas and straight-line scoring areas that are flush with the board, incorporating closely packed receptors to ensure all hits within the outermost circular scoring area register correctly, eliminating the need for plastic borders and enhancing clarity between scoring regions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Shape
If hard plastic yellow borders are used to separate scoring areas, then clarity between regions is improved, but darts bounce off the borders and fail to register, causing scoring inaccuracy
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the hard plastic yellow borders that were causing darts to bounce off and fail to register. By extracting this problematic element and replacing it with recessed grooves filled with contrasting material, the board eliminates the bouncing issue while maintaining region separation.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention applies different properties to different parts of the border system. Instead of using hard plastic throughout, it uses recessed grooves filled with contrasting colored material (such as blue or red) that is flush with the playing surface, providing both visual clarity and a smooth surface that prevents dart bouncing.
2Illumination intensity
If yellow plastic borders are used to define scoring areas, then visual separation is improved, but a significant percentage of throws bounce off and do not register, leading to player frustration
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the protruding yellow plastic borders that were causing darts to bounce off. By extracting this element and replacing it with recessed grooves filled with contrasting material flush with the surface, it maintains visual separation while eliminating the bouncing problem.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the color of the border material from yellow to contrasting colors such as blue or red, which provide equivalent visual separation. This color change, combined with the recessed groove design, maintains visibility while preventing dart bouncing.
3Shape
If concentric circular borders and straight-line borders are used to separate numbers, then region definition is improved, but darts hitting these borders fail to register, causing scoring errors
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the hard plastic borders that were causing darts to bounce off and fail to register. By extracting this problematic element and replacing it with recessed grooves filled with contrasting material, the board maintains region definition while eliminating the scoring errors.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention applies a different property to the border areas by using recessed grooves filled with contrasting colored material that is flush with the playing surface. This local change provides both clear region definition and a smooth surface that prevents dart bouncing, thereby improving scoring precision.
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic dartboard apparatus with an “in-play” scoring area that includes a plurality of narrow concentric circular areas, as well as a plurality of narrow straight-line areas which extend from the innermost circular area, through the interior circular areas, to the outermost circular area. The outermost circular area serves to distinguish between the “in-play” and “out-of-play” areas. The distinct color of the narrow concentric circular and straight-line areas makes them distinguishable from the rest of the board, creating very clear boundaries between all the other scoring areas that make up the “in-play” area. Both the narrow circular and straight-line areas are flush with the rest of the dartboard, and include scoring holes identical to those throughout the entire “in-play” area, thus making the “in-play” surface one continuous, very precise scoring area, where darts no longer bounce off the board, and fail to register the proper score.