Games
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Background: Many countries today have incredibly old leaders. This isn’t a problem per se, but as elected representatives (and un-elected dictators) reach their 80s and 90s, the likelihood of them not being mentally sharp enough to reliably run a country greatly increases. Most people would be skeptical of allowing a 10-year-old to run a country,…
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The Issue: Climbing tall mountains is inherently unsafe. Dangers include falling, high winds, frostbite, venomous snakes, attack by eagles, and the high altitude “DEATH ZONE,” which really makes the whole peak-conquering thing seem like a bad idea. Additionally, this high degree of danger makes it impractical for children, the elderly, and the handicapped to fully…
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Background: Many computer games award “achievements” or “trophies” to the player upon the completion of various challenges: e.g. “Achievement: Finish Level 4 Without Taking Damage” or “Collect Over 1,000,000 Doubloons.” Players will often dedicate substantial effort to these tasks, despite the fact that there is generally no in-game reward for them. Proposal: What if we…
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Background: Most legal systems are extraordinarily complicated and are full of strange rules and loopholes, so the average person has a very superficial understanding of law (as practiced in movies) at best. Just like law, there’s another popular pastime that’s full of rules, thousands of pages of errata, and millions of Internet posts arguing about…
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Background: In golf, a player must find their golf ball within a certain time limit. According to U.S. Golf Association “Rule 18.2,” this is 3 minutes: after that, a one-stroke penalty is levied. Proposal: A golf ball that lands in a “normal” spot on a course (i.e. not way out in the tall grass) is…
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Bring more excitement and closer games to basketball with player height–normalized basketball goals!
Background: Basketball goals normally have a defined height that is the same for both teams. Generally speaking, a taller player (unsurprisingly) is at an advantage in getting a ball into the hoop. The Issue: As a result of this, basketball teams usually consist of exceptionally tall members of the population. However, it may be valuable…
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Background: Most sporting events (and non-sporting events) are affected by the pull of gravity. However, the pull of gravity can actually vary a tiny bit due to both 1) location on Earth and 2) the positions of various nearby planets, moons, and stars*. [*] Usually just one star. The Issue: Currently, no sport adjusts world…
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The Issue: Climbing the world’s tallest mountain peaks can be hazardous for several reasons: a person could be blown off the mountain by gale-force winds, get frozen, or die due to insufficient oxygen in the low-atmospheric-pressure “death zone”—and this is before even considering the danger from disease, avalanches, other humans, and high-altitude cryptids such as…
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Background: In many video games, the process of doling out upgrades to the player is represented in the form of a “skill tree,” where different branches indicate different fields of expertise (e.g. a branch for sword-fighting and a separate one for horseshoe-making). Proposal: Maybe this same idea can be applied to education! See Figure 1…
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Background: A successful game of golf is heavily dependent on the technical execution of the golf swing. The issue: It is possible to imagine many games that are similar to “golf,” except that they do not use a golf club to drive the ball (perhaps “frisbee™ golf” is the most well-known existing example, although it…
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 