Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced?

Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by nmjohn on Sunday February 05, 2017 @09:20PM (#13576073)

I'd be tempted to think they decided to solve the logistics challenge instead of the technical one. So instead of trying to build a generic piece of hardware that detects its own position and lights up accordingly, each torch was unique (or configured via software to be unique, even if at "runtime") and configured specifically for its exact position on the field.

If each torch is designed for it's own show, then the only thing that has to be synced is the exact time to start. And in comparison, that problem is trivial to solve with known constraints (as opposed to triangulating hundreds of devices with < 1ft precision in addition to actually synchronizing the devices)

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by kevinliang on Monday February 06, 2017 @01:22AM (#13577003)

The dance was rehearsed ahead of time and the torches get lit via infrared sensors. (I magically discovered the infrared when I was pressing my TV remote and it just lit up).

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by cobookman on Sunday February 05, 2017 @11:05PM (#13576403)

RAIN Rfid can do this for moving objects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LykdRWTfk

View Technologies can track a moving RAIN Rfid tag to the size of a softball in a xyz plane in realtime.

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by cjmoran on Monday February 06, 2017 @12:41AM (#13576808)

I believe this is the correct answer. The people in the "crowd" holding the torches were also dancing in synchronization with parts of the music, so they obviously practiced beforehand and I'm tempted to assume they each had an assigned spot to stand in at certain times. Given that they were in predetermined positions, the LED synchronization would be trivial.

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by tetraodonpuffer on Sunday February 05, 2017 @10:20PM (#13576261)

but didn't the torches move out when they had the sort of starfish shaped formation and they were all yellow? seems hard to believe they would've been able to coordinate the extras moving far away and then moving right back in position.

What about something low tech like: the field has a grid with infrared emitters pointing up spaced let's say 6 feet apart, when changing positions extras have to keep the torch vertically for a second for it to receive its id from the local emitter, then you simply broadcast every instruction to everybody and each light knows to look only for instructions for its id

As long as you are ok with setting up the emitters on the ground and the assumption that you can "re-sync" the position at every position change, seems like it'd be fairly straightforward

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by bobbytherobot on Sunday February 05, 2017 @10:55PM (#13576376)

It isn't that hard to coordinate professional dancers to do what they did.

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by joezydeco on Sunday February 05, 2017 @11:16PM (#13576437)

Yeah, don't overthink the starfish pattern. There were radial and linear sweeps that were probably RF time-of-flight controlled, but not that part.

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by arbabu on Sunday February 05, 2017 @10:40PM (#13576323)

so are you saying all those people are not some random spectators of the show but super bowl crew? Or random spectators who guarantee that they wont move from their predefined position?

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by reza_n on Sunday February 05, 2017 @10:54PM (#13576374)

The audience was doing choreographed moves during certain songs, so it was not random at all.

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by Gargoyle on Sunday February 05, 2017 @11:17PM (#13576442)

I don't think they were professional dancers, but I also don't think they were random people. Screened and rehearsed locals seems the most likely.

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by Godel_unicode on Monday February 06, 2017 @12:13AM (#13576678)

Not super hard to believe that the NFL was able to recruit Houston natives to do this for free in exchange for a close up concert with Lady Gaga and being on national TV.

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by Rebelgecko on Sunday February 05, 2017 @10:51PM (#13576363)

The people holding them had some synched up dance moves, so they definitely had practice

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Re:Ask HN: How were the super bowl led torches synced? by jasonkostempski on Sunday February 05, 2017 @11:01PM (#13576389)

I figured the dancers were just doing it manually.

edit: after a few rewatches, there's definitely a few places where (non-Chinese) human timing seems unlikely but I'm still hoping it was manual.

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