Friday, 14 November 2008
Written by: Greg Chaffins
Ever hear of "Binocular Soccer"? If you watch a lot of Japanese television then you may be familiar with the term. The ideal is that two soccer teams strap on special goggles that make it difficult to play the game, and therefore in the attempt hilarity ensues.
The goggles are basically like binoculars that magnify the image of the player's surroundings and narrows their field of focus. The result - the ball appears to be much closer than it is in reality, and the players end up kicking in mid-air well in front of the ball. On top of that, since their field of view is narrowed, you will find the players sweeping the area looking for the action. A few players will learn to compensate for the difference in the view, but when the pressure is on the approximations are forgotten and anyone actually moving the ball could be in question.
The mechanics of the goggles are straightforward enough, and the picture shows that the lenses are in line, not angled as you would expect with standard binoculars. At this point we assume that image correction is used in the objective lens to eyepiece lens refractor setup to make the image appear upright. Of course, if they were being extra devious the image could have been left inverted without the correction.
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