AirTrix Mini-Golf Solution

How It Works

The main idea behind successfully maneuvering the ball through the course is Bernoulli's Principle. Very simply, the faster the air flows past the ball, the lower the pressure. When the ball is aloft on an air stream, if the ball starts to slip to one side, the opposite side of the ball has more air flow and thus lower pressure and thus the ball is sucked back to the middle of the stream.

Solution

The holes made use of Bernoulli's Principle in various ways (or required increased motor skill with an already learned trick) or demonstrated other uses for air power.

Hole 1 - Sea Serpent
Although the ball can be moved through the ground course by very gently blowing the ball from directly behind, it is far easier to blow to the side on which you want the ball to move. It feels very counter-intuitive since it seems logical to try to push the ball with the air. The problem with pushing the ball is that if the air stream is ever not directly behind the ball, it will zoom off in an unexpected direction. The restriction of staying outside the roped area increased the difficulty of keeping the air behind the ball.

Hole 2 - Party
In this hole, the teams had to learn how to keep the ball aloft. It seems almost impossible at first since the drivers would try to run under the ball with the blower to keep it aloft. Once they learned to stand still and bring the ball back towards them by raising the barrel of the blower more vertical, they discovered they had good control. Once the ball was aloft and steady, the blower could be tilted at a significant angle without the ball falling out of the stream. A second driver needed to blow the boxes out of the way. It was not possible to wrap the boxes around the bar or ring, but the box did not actually need to be blown very much. This was to show the teams that the aloft ball is actually quite hearty and not as fragile a situaion might be thought.

Hole 3 - Clock
Since the pendulum is moving, the teams simply had to be a little more skillful than they were in Hole 2. They had to learn how to hold the blower for accessing low rings and how to whip the ball fast enough to go through the ring but slow and gentle enough to keep the ball aloft.

Hole 4 - Ocean
This hole was extremely difficult and after about half-way through the event, we stopped making teams attempt it. It requires very good coordination between the drivers to blow the plastic up to make hills and valleys for the ball to follow while keeping the ball from rolling off the end of the plastic.

Hole 5 - Circus Cannon
Although there was a bright orange foot switch in the middle of this hole, many teams made several attempts at reaching the very high ring before noticing it. After flying the ball to the end of the cannon, pressing the foot switch would send the ball flying from another blower hidden in the cannon. If the cannon blower is turned on and left on, the ball will just sit in that stream and not go through the ring. Some teams tried to help the ball through with their driver's blower, but the easiest way was to pulse the foot pedal once. This will get the ball to arc at the top of its travel and go through the ring. Since there is a third ring, the teams had to catch the ball after it went through the high ring. The easiest way to do that was to have the other blower on and ready to go and just bring the air stream under the ball after it had cleared the high ring.

Hole 6 - Weather
Teams thought that this hole would require passing the ball back and forth since their positions were restricted to small islands, but when they went for the first ring, they discovered that the whole assembly rotated like a a carousel. It was best to have one driver handle flying the ball and the other driver blow on the vanes that helped rotate the assembly. Many teams quit rotating when the desired ring was in front of the driver with the ball, but the flying of the ball would start it spinning again (usually in the wrong direction). The seond driver should have kept blowing on the vane slightly until the first driver was through the ring.

Hole 7 - Slime
Although this hole can be done by one driver with skill, it is designed to be done by both drivers. They pass the ball back and forth through the rings. The trick to passing is turn up the receiving blower while turning down the passing blower.

Hole 8 - Galaxy
This appeared to be quite a simple hole, but since the rings were on ropes and mobile arms, they could rotate and bounce up and down. Teams tried to blow one end up in an attempt to see-saw the other end down, but this was almost always a mistake that sent the rings into a frenzy. The best approach was to wait for the ring to be accessible, bring the ball next to it (without blowing the ring) and then to sling the ball through the ring quicker than the ring can start to flail around. Having the second driver ready to catch the ball if the slinging was too hard was a good idea.

Hole 9 - Windmill
No goofy golf course is complete without a windmill. The easiest way to get the ball through the rings was to let the ball rest on the windmill blade as it went by and then push it through when the blade passed. Since three of the rings were very low and it was easy to have the plastic decor get sucked into the blower, the teams needed to work from the side of the mill and angle the blower for the easiest route.

Design Notes

This puzzle was born from a game Rick and Debora used to play as children - AirTrix - but less lame and much, much bigger.