Life In 19x19

I thought of ways to make a Go-set portable and this unique and simple set is the result.
Thought I'd share it with you all.
It consists of the "board" that is made of 400 magnetic spheres (10mm) and the (non-magnetic) "stones" spheres (8mm).
I'll realize the plans in about a month or so when I have the time for it and post some pictures here then.
But ..untill then:
Please let me know what you think of it!

EDIT: Scroll down to see the finished board.





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Extra-wide pic placed in hide tags for those who have narrow screens. -JB
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That bought a smile to my face. It looks very cool, and what's more, if it is flexible, the pieces will be fixed in place and able to be used on journeys, and so on. What a great idea.

I'm not sure that they need to be magnetic, as I would think that having spheres slotted into other spheres would sufficiently prevent them moving around.

Edit: I see that you imagine the board to be the magnetic bit. I would be a bit concerned about this, because the balls would be easy to lose, and it would be difficult to roll the board up because the balls would stick to each other. I would prefer a non-magnetic board with some system of wires to keep the board together, like a beaded car seat cover.

My only concern is I find the board harder to read because the intersections are "topological" rather than a black grid.

Jujube wrote:That bought a smile to my face. It looks very cool, and what's more, if it is flexible, the pieces will be fixed in place and able to be used on journeys, and so on. What a great idea.

I'm not sure that they need to be magnetic, as I would think that having spheres slotted into other spheres would sufficiently prevent them moving around.

Edit: I see that you imagine the board to be the magnetic bit. I would be a bit concerned about this, because the balls would be easy to lose, and it would be difficult to roll the board up because the balls would stick to each other. I would prefer a non-magnetic board with some system of wires to keep the board together, like a beaded car seat cover.

My only concern is I find the board harder to read because the intersections are "topological" rather than a black grid.

Thanks )) I'm glad you like it.

I thought about making the board out of wooden hemispheres but then I'd have to find a way to make them stick together like you mentioned and magnets were the solution.
I'm not worried of loosing board-spheres, they're pretty cheap and stick together, and if the stones-spheres are ferromagnetic you wouldn't loose them either although they would be harder to remove from the board. The whole idea of the thing was to be able to put everything in a small container and be on the way.

Your concerns are also mine:
It takes some time to construct the board out of the magnets, I could live with that, but the readability of the board concerns me more. I'd like to hear more opinions on that.

I like the idea and welcome the innovation. I was just wondering. With this amount of magnets, what would the total weight of a full set be? It seems that might restrict the portable nature of this sphere-go set. But nice idea, please post some pictures when you're done.

Hushfield wrote:I like the idea and welcome the innovation. I was just wondering. With this amount of magnets, what would the total weight of a full set be? It seems that might restrict the portable nature of this sphere-go set. But nice idea, please post some pictures when you're done.

Thanks.
Good thing you brought that up. I'll let you know when I make it. (Not in the mood to calculate the weight right now) I guess I thought about the compactness more than about the weight.

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Pic removed for being in violation of the TOS. -JB
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Your concerns are also mine:
It takes some time to construct the board out of the magnets, I could live with that, but the readability of the board concerns me more. I'd like to hear more opinions on that.

Maybe different coloured balls surrounding the star points? Like a light metallic blue? also experimenting with different sized stones so that they feel natural. How about a slightly darker colour sphere for the board edges? Since the intersections are "inside" the spheres, the first and last sphere columns/rows are technically the space between the physical edge and first line in a flat board.

Jujube wrote:

Your concerns are also mine:
It takes some time to construct the board out of the magnets, I could live with that, but the readability of the board concerns me more. I'd like to hear more opinions on that.

Maybe different coloured balls surrounding the star points? Like a light metallic blue? also experimenting with different sized stones so that they feel natural. How about a slightly darker colour sphere for the board edges? Since the intersections are "inside" the spheres, the first and last sphere columns/rows are technically the space between the physical edge and first line in a flat board.

Ok. I'll think about it.
Just keep the ideas coming.

Pic here:

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Extra-wide pic placed in hide tags for those who have narrow screens. -JB
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Yes, that seems better to me. But, there is certainly a balance to get, isn't there, between having something of minimalist beauty and maybe compromising this to enhance readability.

How does it look without the border?

I wonder how it would look with a darker background. Would this make the points stand out a bit more in the model?

Jujube wrote:Yes, that seems better to me. But, there is certainly a balance to get, isn't there, between having something of minimalist beauty and maybe compromising this to enhance readability.

How does it look without the border?

I wonder how it would look with a darker background. Would this make the points stand out a bit more in the model?

Exactly! Balance! You read my thoughts.
(Also: I don't want to paint the damn things)
I think I came up with a compromise. 4mm rods that fit in the space underneath a stone on a star-point. Maybe copper or black * ?
I also attatched some pics of the materials I intend to use (the spheres for the board are * plated 10mm, black stones are obsidian and white stones magnesite 8mm)

As for the background: I'm using an old version of SketchUp (I downloaded it while Google owned the program, It's THAT old) and I have no idea how to change it. I can send you the sketchup file if you want me to. Maybe I'll make a new model with fancy textures and stuff in Maya if I find the time but untill then the quick and dirty sketchup model will suffice.





Thanks for putting the pics in a hide * Admin!
Hope it works without your help this time (if not; thanks again)


I NEED MORE INPUT PLEASE. YOU ARE ALL WELCOME TO COMMENT. BE CRUEL.

A beautiful and innovative idea! The aesthetic is futuristic and elegant at the same time.

I worry about the stability of the board if it's made out of separate magnetic spheres though. If one sphere slips from the grid during a game all progress will be lost. Maybe the solution Jujube suggested would be better.

The cost of materials would go down a bit if you would not use separate magnets and there would be less set-up time as well. The only downside is more labor to attach the board-spheres together (using wire maybe?).

I like how it emphasizes the fact that adjacent stones are connected and that diagonally opposed stones are not. It does seem a bit busy visually though, with all those spheres and their shadows.

I find it hard to read the stones (basically viewing "spheres" on other spheres), and probably even harder if the board-spheres are not contrasting both colors (B + W), e.g. B/W + grey or metallic spheres.

The idea to use spheres to build the board is good to make it easy to transport. The closest so far using a magnetic approach are half-split magnetic boards, but still there are not as compact.

But actually what would be the problem in using (magnetic) cubes or boxes (with smaller height) as tiles to make up a board?
Sure some people like the board having a certain height, but even with half the height, it makes the material to transport less than the spheres I guess.
Also with "cubes" (or smaller boxes) you can draw a real grid on them (just need some special ones for the edges and corners, perhaps with some spares if some are lost).
The "board"-feeling would be more real (less disturbing), and the advantage of the spheres (being able to build smaller boards) would be there as well.
For optimization some of the tiles could even be a bit bigger (2x2, 2x3, 3x3, etc) to make up a board faster than with single tiles.

Interesting, though I imagine it to be quite distracting, with that many marbles …

Reminds me of how I once (must’ve been in the early 80s) wanted to create a Go board made of a copper sheet with 361 hemispherical dents in it and using B and W marbles as stones … but I never carried that out.

Good luck with this, I’ll be watching


Greetings, Tom

Thanks for all the comments, I'll post some pictures and a YouTube video of the finished board next month or so with comments of the people that will have played with it.

Feel free to build one just like it yourself (maybe you're faster than me) and post some pics.

More comments are appreciated.

It sure looks fancy! Idea is charming indeed!
I'm not a big specialist on magnets, but, if the magnets you are planning to use are like the spherical magnets used in those magnetic bead toys, it actually requires a certain level skill to arrange those spherical magnets in a square formation where all the centers of the beads are aligned, they tend to naturally stick in rows that are 1/2 diameter off, it took me a good while just to figure out how to put together a 6x6 square reliably (I might not be super bright, but the task deffz was not trivial), and it does get a lot more unstable as it grows bigger from my experience. I kinda fear that it would escalate in 2 puzzles in one, first putting the board together and than a game of go. (that has it's own appeal at times)

Anyway, I would love to see the results!