Technology has finally given us a solution to how to fill downtime at weddings, business conferences and mass: A tie that lets you actually play Tetris.
A teacher named Bill Porter invented the tie to impress his students at FSU STEM Camp. He had already worn an LED lab coat and an 8-bit tie and really wanted to dazzle them on their last day. According to his website, he invented the tie in just four hours after a long day of teaching out of parts that he had lying around his work space, specifically the tie-videogame crossover is constructed out of “80 WS2811 based RGB LED pixels and is driven by a DigiSpark microcontroller.” He added a heavily modified Tetris engine and, voila, hours of entertainment all hidden within some staid business attire.
Unfortunately, the first prototype isn’t a playable game and the blocks are programmed to fall randomly. Porter plans to develop the project when he has more than four hours. However the tie did serve its purpose: Porter’s tie managed to wow an entire room of tech-savvy eighth graders. That alone is pretty impressive.
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Technology has finally given us a solution to how to fill downtime at weddings, business conferences and mass: A tie that lets you actually play Tetris.
A teacher named Bill Porter invented the tie to impress his students at FSU STEM Camp. He had already worn an LED lab coat and an 8-bit tie and really wanted to dazzle them on their last day. According to his website, he invented the tie in just four hours after a long day of teaching out of parts that he had lying around his work space, specifically the tie-videogame crossover is constructed out of “80 WS2811 based RGB LED pixels and is driven by a DigiSpark microcontroller.” He added a heavily modified Tetris engine and, voila, hours of entertainment all hidden within some staid business attire.
Unfortunately, the first prototype isn’t a playable game and the blocks are programmed to fall randomly. Porter plans to develop the project when he has more than four hours. However the tie did serve its purpose: Porter’s tie managed to wow an entire room of tech-savvy eighth graders. That alone is pretty impressive.
MORE: From World of Warcraft to Weight Loss: How Virtual Reality Can Change Behavior
MORE: Google and Console Makers Beware: Apple Already Has the Makings of a Great Game System