Last week, Las Vegas was not on the site of DEFCON, but the American Poolplayer’s Association World Championships. And, on the Las Vegas Monorail, there were not only hackers with their cute DEFCON backpacks, but more pool players with small cases carrying their cue sticks.
On the flight home Saturday, I was seated in an aisle seat, kitty corner from one of the contestants. It was a fairly long flight, and I’d been playing some Solitaire when I noted that the fellow was playing some kind of billiards app. On his tiny phone screen, he was able to set up and make shots.
That got me thinking about ham radio apps that would be entertaining and help people be better hams? One thought that occurred to me is Ham Radio Jeopardy. Here are some ideas on how it might work:
- There would be 10 categories of questions, corresponding to the categories in the exam question pools, i.e. Commission’s Rules, Operating Procedures, Radio Wave Propagation, Amateur Radio Practices, Electrical Principles, Circuit Components, Practical Circuits, Signals and Emissions, Antennas and Feed Lines, Electrical and RF Safety.
- Other categories might include Ham Radio History, DXing and DXpeditions, Contesting, Ham Radio Organizations, etc.
- The app would pseudo-randomly select questions from a database for each game. The database would contain all the questions in the question pool, plus user-submitted questions.
- There would be one-player and two-player modes. In one-player mode, the player would have to decide whether or not to award themselves points.
- In two-player mode, the screen would have two buttons, and the player who pressed theirs first, gets to answer the question, just like in Jeopardy. Since there’s no Alex Trebeck (or whoever is hosting the game now), it would be up to the opponent to decide if the question was answered correctly and award the points.
- Just like Jeopardy, whoever last answered correctly gets to choose the next question.
- In two-player mode, there could be Daily Doubles, just like on the TV show. I’m not sure it makes all that much sense for the one-player mode.
- The answers could include links and references so that the players could find out more information about a particular topic.
So, what do you think? Got any more ideas for the app? Would you or someone you know like to take a swing at developing it?
Something similar already exists with online practice exams. Admittedly, these don’t have nearly the watchable fun factor as what you’re describing, but then the main topics are engineering and FCC regulations after all.
Also, qrz.com has their daily trivia quiz. I think that a lot more could be done with that to up the fun and education, so maybe you’re onto something here.
Anyway, I enjoy doing both in spare moments. Yes, even the practice exams. What a nerd.
Along these lines I’d like to see a video game that helps me improve my Morse code skills. I have never taken this any further than this initial step. Just wonderin’ . . . ?