The Controversial Machine That’s Ruining Bowling
2023 ж. 11 Жел.
1 275 311 Рет қаралды
To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/hai
The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription.
Get a Half as Interesting t-shirt: standard.tv/collections/half-...
Suggest a video: halfasinteresting.com/suggest
Follow Sam from Half as Interesting on Instagram: / sam.from.wendover
Follow Half as Interesting on Twitter: / halfinteresting
Discuss this video on Reddit: / halfasinteresting
Video written by Amy Muller
Check out our other channels: / wendoverproductions
/ jetlagthegame
For all the real people in the comments, that Amazon thing is a crypto scam and you should report any of the comments talking about it.
Thanks, will purge
You, a mortal, dare oppose the AMA94K program? You will be removed within the next celestial iteration 🗿🗿🗿🗿
Jokes aside surely youtube could be doing more to prevent this problem across basically every popular video
I reported about 40 comments already
All of us should should boycott Amazon
Glad to see Amy doing quality research while spending HAI's budget on Mozz sticks.
Research fuel expenses
And 3D animation
After walking the 1,000+ mile marathon from a couple of episodes ago, she deserves it.
I am hoping that she can find a way to spend his cash on some nuggs.
Really flawed research. If they only go to two bowling centers and don‘t bowl too often the second one is certainly close to always getting better results…
my aunt owns a bowling alley and they have the old school pin setting machines. one thing alley owners have been doing with the lower traffic is setting up the machines to actually shut down instead of idling when the lane is not in use. also a lot of alleys run into the problem that these machines are actually pretty reliable so they ignore the daily maintenance they require and then get crushed on the price when major parts start constantly breaking from not being lubed and maintained. be good to your machine and it will be good to you
I set pins in 1964 and got a nickel per bowler in league. First check was $4.80 after taxes.
You gotta keep things lubed if you want your pins and balls handled properly.
Coolest field trip I ever went on as a kindergarten special needs kid was behind the machines in the bowling alley. They were all turned off and we were very thoroughly instructed to keep our hands in our pockets, and it was so unbelievably cool to get to see that back area at that age
Lol simpleton
So cool!
Was the hand in pocket thing to make sure nobody got their hands broken?
@@agentnull5242 no, the theme of the trip was bowling and covert masturbation
seems like a smart place to bring a bunch of special kids
Will never forget the time my father bowled a strike with so much force it shot a pin back up into the machine and they had to close the lane for a week until it was repaired. Always wondered how the pin managed to break something, but seeing the amount of moving parts now, it makes sense haha
Also, bowling pins are really fucking heavy.
@@wta1518does 3.5 lb count as really heavy?
one time I threw it before the sweeper left and the bowling ball hit the sweeper... whoops
@@XiuHang When it's colliding with tiny ball bearings at high velocities, yes
it's not so much them being heavy or not, just occasional bad luck of a pin bouncing up between moving parts with a lot of power moving them. Think of it like shoving a stick into the spokes of a bicycle wheel while someone is riding past. Pins are typically made of maple, chosen because it can put up with a lot of compression force without being damaged... that really plays havoc on the parts of the machine if a pin gets stuck between moving parts, especially in a way counter to the typical forces on the machine, for example wedging the rack up where the machine is designed for gravity to be doing most of the work to set it down. Some of the newer machines are computer controlled and can tell when something is wrong, but most bowling centers are still using the fully mechanical machines designed in the 60's that will run a full cycle without care for what parts are broken and hanging off.
I can understand the league bowlers being upset by the change, but string setters are saving the game. Bowling alleys were dying out, but are now appearing all over the place due to the affordability, low power and low maintenance. Personally my favourite way of playing them is smashing the pins with enough force to try and make a knot that the machine can't untangle. The way the old machines crushed the mechanics to death was particularly sinister. They usually got trapped above the table that sets the pins, and the motor would keep trying to run, meaning that every time they breathed out it would inch up a bit higher and gradually asphyxiate them. Any initial cries for help were drowned out by the immense noise of the other machines, meaning that they would only be found when players complained that their machine wasn't working yet. String setters have been standard in many weird variants of the game throughout Europe for a long time.
This must be happening everywhere except for where I am then.
Big Clive!!! I’m fangirling all over the place!! 😂 Seriously though, love you, and thank you for this amazing explanation of how the machines crushed people. It was spectacularly sinister.
I don't know about dying out, but many have closed over the last couple decades. Mostly leagues just are not as big as they once were. The thing with all the closed centers is that there are lots of machines sitting about making them pretty cheap to keep running. The truth of it is, the real cost is paying for mechanics that know what they are doing an can repair and maintain the machines. Any new construction bowling center today would rather pay more for string setters up front than have to pay mechanics forever. It's the same reason you order McDonalds with a touch screen instead of a person today. People are expensive.
I noticed lots of small bowling alleys being part of game warehouses. (places with arcade machines, pool, air hockey etc) in city centres. Where you have a small alley of 2-6 lanes. Not the mega 32 / 48 /56 lane alleys.
I feel like the "crush to death" problems could be solved by proper LOTO procedures, which should already be happening anyway because machines don't have brains. I know it's not that statistically significant, but while I was in the trades I worked for two separate companies, both for about a year. One was pretty lax about LOTO procedures, and while I was there three people got serious injuries, in one case losing all 4 fingers on their hand, because of poor LOTO procedures. In the other place, which was extremely strict about making sure proper LOTO procedures were used, we had zero notable injuries. The second place had about 100 more employees than the first, so workforce size didn't play much into it
The problem with the anecdotal test, is bad bowlers don't make pins fly, if the pins mostly topple or move within a foot of their location, the string will make no difference. But once you start hitting the pins with speed, the way the front pins ricochet, is absolutely noticeable imo.
Also bad bowler performance greatly varies between games, since they don’t have a consistent technique down
With puts in idea that BOTH are good, one for more advanced players and one for casuals.
Hi! I used to be a head mechanic on those big automatic pinsetters. Honestly one of the coolest jobs I've ever had. Our machines were ancient, but we made due. But working in that field, the biggest issue for smaller bowling alleys always ends up as the same unfortunate thing. It's incredibly expensive to replace pinsetters which is why there are still so many places with machines that are hella old. It's not easy to install and remove those buggers, especially with the way some older buildings are set up like ours was. Despite the fact we were owned by the biggest bowling company in the region, it was actually cheaper for them to build other locations and install them with modern machines than it would've been to replace ours, for reference. While it would be cool to see more of these, it'll likely only be for newer places than older ones. On that note though, bowling actually has seen a recent upswing in popularity over the past few years. Our location before I left actually saw a rather massive growth in customers! I really hope it continues, bowling is such an underrated passtime.
And which would explain the condition of pinsetters in candlepin / duckpin alleys.
those old pinsetter machines are very reliable as long as the daily maintenance is done. one of the big problems was the generation of owners changing to ones that did not know how these machines needed to be maintained so every breakdown was major instead of just regular wear parts
i don't bowl much but i can guarantee you i'll never bowl on a string pin machine. shits gay asf
Our bowling alley has had some Brunswick A2 pinsetters there for more than 40 years, i believe they are at the point where they are going to replace them due to their age, i hope they dont replace with string ones, that would suck.
you already know they're going to replace them with strings lol@@nzoomed
As a serious bowler, who knows a lot about the subject I was going to add some context, but I'm shocked at how accurate the research was. This channel does good research. The little experiment they did at the end was pointless, a victim of very small sample size + amateur bowlers who are by their nature volatile in their scores. The string pin study was mostly for league+professional bowling, where bowlers tend to be more consistent shot to shot and would notice if they weren't getting the strike they deserved for a good shot. If there is context to be added, I will say I've watched lots of videos about string pins and can tell you that the length of the string matters a lot. The USBC knew this and "certified" a certain length of string where score variations did not vary from freefall machines, and in my opinion this is true. But not all bowling centers use this length of string, so there will be definite noticeable differences in score and feel.
I was coming here to say the same. I will fully admit I'm not a consistent enough bowler for my data to be included in any type of comparison between different lane/pin/pattern types, and I've been bowling in leagues for 5 years now. Four people who averaged a 67 game... DEFINITELY not consistent enough for it to be good data. If they want actual data about the difference between the two, they need people who do this regularly enough to be consistent at it... not 4 people who are throwing gutter balls half their shots.
@@chkltcow or who don't know what ball is the right weight for them... I think I dunno if that's a good point to make I'm not a professional bowler
Absolutely right. There is a bowling alley near where I went to university and they used string pins. The strings were so short and the weight of the pins was so low that I never once got a strike and spares were rare, as the pins' short string just never let them roll or bounce away from where they started. Went to a freefall on the other side of town and suddenly was getting strikes and spares. I hate string pins, but mostly because I've only been exposed to the non-professional bad ones that ruin all joy.
Maybe as a serious bowler you can answer something for me: I always thought that the main complaint about string pinsetters was the fact that they can't "remember" the off-spot position of a pin that was pushed but not toppled - while in tournament play the pin should stay where it is between the first and second bowl. Did I misunderstand anything there or is this rolled into the "but it doesn't affect scoring" argument?
Time to start enforcing an industry standard I guess?
I had always been confused by the fact the pins in the bowling alley in my countryside Brazilian town had strings but the ones in American movies were seamingly sorted by some form of black magic. Thanks for solving the mystery.😂
I always wondered how you die in this machine if all that it does is to pull the pins up and set them down again. Turns out, Germany also uses strings lmao.
The answer to questions like that is usually that the US had something earlier and that the earlier version was fossilized for one reason or another. I haven't been bowling in decades, but I suspect that the only people that are really going to care about this are the people who are good enough to potentially have a 300 game ruined by this. For most people, the availability of lanes due to the decreased costs are going to be a bigger factor. Locally, most of the bowling alleys have been closing because bowling was never particularly popular here. So that reduction in cost is a really big deal for us. In parts of the country where it's more popular and people are more likely to play in leagues, it's probably less of an issue.
I never even knew strings existed.
@@WhiteThunder121 I'm going to guess the deaths and injuries are split between maintenance workers getting caught up while doing a repair of some sort, and unqualified teenagers sticking their arm inside to free up a jammed pin.
Nah, he's lying, it's black magic.
One thing I've noticed about the "classic" pin setters is that on the rare occasion when a pin had light contact and didn't fall, but kind of "walked" away from it's spot, the setter would pick it up then set it back down right where it came from (within limits: I once saw the setter jam when it descended and tried to pick up a pin that was so far out of position it couldn't handle it). In other words, it doesn't reset it's location to the "standard" spot. I was always amazed by this ability. Based on the video showing how the string setters work I don't think they can do this. I think the "classic" setter's ability to replace the pin where it came from, while very subtle, can have an impact on the game - for highly skilled bowlers. This is the other aspect not covered by the studies: the effect on the game for highly skilled bowlers. I suspect that casual bowlers won't notice any difference, but league bowlers would definitely notice.
I've been working on the machines for nearly 50 years. I believe it WAS an ABC requirement that the machine respot the pin back in the same place the bowler left it. And if the machine did knock it over because it was too far out of range, we always attempted to manually reset the pin back where the bowler said it was. The string machines obviously lack this ability. My experience says that anything new is not as good as what it replaces!
Because that's the rule.....if a pin is knocked off spot but still in range of the pinsetter then that pin must be replaced on the point at which it was picked up. With Brunswick pinsetters they stop if the pin is too far out of range for the machine to pick up. The machine is able to be restarted without the rake sweeping the deck clean but the rule says any deadwood should be removed prior to the bowler proceeding. On AMF equipment if too far out of range it will usually knock the offspot pin over. Any offspot pin knocked over by the pinsetting equipment must be respotted in its normal 1st ball position. All deadwood should be cleared prior to the bowler proceeding.
I'm a Bowling tech. Just would like to point out that the explanation you gave on how the bowling lanes work is fantastic. It was silly that you mentioned AMF multiple time and kept cutting to B-Roll of AMF lanes and showed a detailed diagram of Brunswick's GSX lanes. AMF lanes use an arm system with a clutch to drop every pin into their individual holder. It's way more complicated. Anyways nice video, and no string lanes are not killing bowling :P
I agree they arent killing bowling, but I refuse to go to an alley with strings and there are many like me
i hate string pins
It doesn’t technically kill Bowling in general but it only kills off the Competitive side of Bowling (Leagues, National/International Tournaments, PBA, etc.) because the pin action is horrible and the Tangled Pins is a mess, it takes longer than a normal pinsetter cycle
Anyone who is an avid bowler will continue to bowl even with strings. Because leagues are fun and strings may suck but not bowling at all in a league sucks worse.
Meanwhile, candlepin lanes are string-free.
I find it ironic that computerized robots stole human jobs, and now stone age technology is replacing robot jobs. Don't be surprised if this is what triggers the long anticipated robot rebellion.
@@hungrycrab3297 I'm here from the future, this happens, if you see any signs that it's not going to happen, try to stop them at all costs or else bad things might happen
Are you saying AI can’t handle string theory?
@@beaudure01 Ba Dum Tss!! 🤣
@@hungrycrab3297I love this exchange
That's what a collapse looks like
Im studying statistics, and that reference absolutely made me feel that wasting hours in studying statistics didn't go to waste, time for me to do my own bowling quality testing
I KNOW RIGHT, ITS ALMOST TIME FOR FINALS AND I COULD HAVE LEARNED EVERYTHING SO MUCH BETTER
@@4_sakn390 literally got exam on Friday
With or without mozzarella sticks?
@@classifiedad1 depends on what they offer
I had the exact same thoughts! Being able to understand everything he said about stats felt good lol.
My cousins bowled pro through most of high school and all of college (on scholarship for bowling) they can immediately tell when an alley is “short stringing” and will often walk out mid-game never returning to that alley without being bribed with significant amounts of food and alcohol. You would think with strings dramatically reducing overhead alleys wouldn’t cut corners on string length, but I guess just a little bit more string for each pin is too much to ask.
Running with shorter strings has nothing to do with cost, and everything to do with lowering tangles...
@@Triley215yeah I can’t imagine a small amount of additional string would be that costly.
@@Triley215 which is a cost. if they have to get someone to fix it slows down games (their goal is to get as many people through the 10frames as quick as possible) and maybe a lot of tangles would need an extra staff member so not the 1 person doing front desk, cleaning and drinks as well as technical some have.
@@jonh6585a bowling centre's goal should not to bowlers to bowl as many games as possible. Smart bowling centres charge hourly rates. Either way, you're preaching to the choir on this one. I have 28 freefall and 12 string machines that I'm the head mechanic for.
Rofl, no bowling center is going to give free crap to someone just because they were a college bowler.... this is delusional 🤣
The picture at 2:35 is from a nin-pin bowling alley, which is standard in Europe to be operated with strings. Its even a dynamic of the game to shoot pins around another one and pull on its string to activate it and count as "fallen".
I was a teen-aged pinsetter and I was NOT underpaid. Plus, we got tips from the bowlers; usually half or silver dollars rolled down the lane after the game.
what were the ergonomics like? was there a way to do it without messing up your back?
@@andy4an we were teenagers, we didn't think about nor care about our backs
I had a lot of fun in the back of the alley. I was definitely underpaid, but we generally made up what we weren't getting paid in "other ways".
My father used to tip extra to get some pinsetters he knew well to set the 7 and 10 in a little bit.
Yeah the world was different back then gramps. We don't get housing or schooling for a song and a dance like you boomers did. Silver dollars, pfft.
Work at a bowling alley. With 20 lanes and the old machines consistently broke, to the point that it would severely hamper people’s enjoyment. We’d have to give them more time, move them to other lanes, one guy had to wait an hour bc his personal ball that he owned was lodged in the pin elevator. Having angry customers come up to the front desk was all too common. If we were packed on a Friday night and a lane was unfixable, there wasn’t much our manager could do to satisfy people without refunds.
Routine maintenance would be my first suggestion. Working in the bowling industry for some 15 years now, traveling to dozens of bowling centers every year. Lack of routine Maintenace is the only reason I've seen for constant machine failures. Parts break, but a skilled mechanic can swap out any of the ones that break often in 10 minutes. I've only seen maybe 4 cases where a part that failed was something that a center had to order in rather than something where they have spares on a shelf ready to go. I have seen several centers that decided not to do the regular Maintenace, or not to hire a mechanic that knows what they are doing, and they tend to have lots more issues than the places that realize the machines need to be maintained.
@@johngaltline9933 work at an alley and we just switched from GSX to brunswick string pin this october, routine maintenance is all well and good until your mechanics leave over the years, having done more harm than good to the machines in the long run (used horrible oils on the chains) and leave your new inexperienced front desk workers to all the mess. as jamaicanskeleton said, stops were plenty and mad customers too. nowadays i have to go to the back maybe 2 or 3 times on a very busy weekend. fewer stops, much faster pinsetting and way less cost overall makes stringpins a no-brainer in my opinion
@@Jabberwork. So clearly they were not SKILLED mechanics....just people hired to do the job without knowledge or training. Routine maintenance should be easy to accomplish since lanes aren't used most of the 24 hour day.
@@ian3580 and where do you suppose those skilled mechanics will come from? not to mention that any kind of skilled job position will be more expensive to fill, and bowling alleys aren't exactly flush with cash.
@@johngaltline9933 This is a business death spiral. External factors (game popularity) harm revenues a bit. It becomes harder to keep up with competitive wages for skilled people, and you don't have the cash to replace machines that are just plainly worn out. You get unskilled people at the price you can afford to try to keep the existing equipment running. They do a bad job. Breakdowns happen more frequently, reducing potential revenue (lanes down) and making the people who do come upset because their games keep getting interrupted by mechanical failures. Fewer people want to bowl. Repeat cycle. String setters break the cycle by being simple enough for unskilled people to adequately maintain, and saving money on parts and electricity. Presumably they're also cheaper to buy up front, too.
As a service brat back in the Fifties I set pins at the two lane base bowling alley at one of the smaller bases at which we were stationed. Every now and then a pin would go flying past. It never occurred that one could brain me.
My problem with this study (and before you jump my case I have my bachelor’s in mathematics, so I have some idea what I’m talking about) is that while the average scores, average number of strikes, and average number of spares may be staying relatively close across string and no string lanes, this does not account for everything. They are definitely a different experience, and shots behave differently. I would be much more interested in tracking the data from the path the ball follows too, and adjust for that. The strings will necessarily change the behavior of the pins on impact (that’s just physics, you can argue all you want but you’ll just be wrong), and there will be shots that land strikes/spares in one alley but not the other and vice versa. This variability could effectively cancel itself out on average, so while quantitatively on average the alleys are the same, they are qualitatively different, if that makes sense. Think about comparing two sports cars that are relatively similar in lap times, but maybe one handles corners better and the other handles acceleration and deceleration on straightaways better. The differences cancel each other out enough that the overall effect (who gets around the track quicker) is the same, while the process of actually driving around the track will feel very different depending on the vehicle. I hope I explained that clearly enough, but my point is I don’t think this study properly accounts for other things which affect the overall experience of the game. Keep in mind too that the bowling robot is more consistent than any human. The fact it scored worse on the string pins demonstrates a quantitative change in the behavior of the pins that the programmers of the robot, or the program itself, were not able to correct quickly enough to get a good score. There is a difference, but the humans were able to adjust mentally. Maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously, as the pro bowlers have these adjustments engrained in them, but it’s clearly different as the robot demonstrates.
It's trivial for centers to shift averages around and make strings look roughly equivalent to free fall. Just make the pattern a true Xmas tree and tailor the volume to whatever is useful for the players in your leagues. If you have a bunch of old men reduce volume, a bunch of younger guys throwing Gems jack it up.
But these 4 people who average 70ish pins sometimes bowled better on strings. People who can't consistently hit the pocket and throw straight balls are obviously the ones that matter the most when measuring the impact to the professional game.
@@cwolf208 I’m referring to the study the US bowling Congress conducted, which consisted of only professionals, I’m not referring to the anecdotal statistically insignificant study ran by the people from this channel. In either case, my point still stands
@@andrewkarsten5268 I was definitely being sarcastic. I agree with you
Worked at a bowling alley in High School, 15 year old kid working on AMF 8230 Pinsetters with the old relay style chassis "brains" on them, things were friggin deadly, came close to losing limbs/fingers MANY times!
Are you not supposed to turn them off before you start sticking your fingers in? Or do you have to turn the whole line off so no one bothers. I would have said there is definitely a safe way of working on them, just no one bothers because it’s too much work
The old 3930 "latch" chassis, if I recall correctly?
As AvE says, "don't stick your fingie where you won't stick your dinkie!"
@@bbgun061 Yeah, wish AvE hadn't turned out to be an idiot during the Canada convoy protests, hailing the idiots as heros.
@@pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug9042 that's basically how the vast majority of industrial accidents happen. Engineers (I know as one after all) go through absolutely absurd stupidity scenarios to make things safer, but there will ALWAYS be an override of sorts (specially in maintenance), and you can bet workers will use those hackjobs to speed up their work.
The problem with strings is mostly in regards to pin action - if there are strings all over the lane, the knocked over pins can't roll around and potentially hit others that are still standing. As a result you eliminate a bit of the luck present in bowling.
Isn't eliminating luck arguably a good thing in a sport though?
This is getting into semantics but is that really luck or part of the game? If you hit a pin and it rolls into another pin, that first pin wouldn’t have been rolling if you wouldn’t have hit it
@@hedgehog3180 In bowling it's part of the sport and always has been. Hell, if you get a 7-10 split it's arguably necessary to get lucky in order to get a spare
I would say it actually adds more randomness to the game. Sometimes the string stops a pin from knocking down another pin as you mentioned, but sometimes you miss a split, but the string tugs down the other pin and you convert the split anyway.
@@hedgehog3180 Not really when it's an accepted part of the game and part of what makes it enjoyable for people across a wide range of skill levels.
The closest bowling alley in my area is about 45 minutes away on a good traffic day. It’s been there for at least 35 years that I know of, and despite being built in an area that regularly floods (the alley gets at least a foot of water inside the building 3-4 times each year and 6-8 feet of water every 5 years or so), I have never seen it at anything less than 75% capacity.
The wording implies that even in 8 feet of water, the alley is still having over 75% of its lanes used
@@Brent-jj6qi water bowling
As a tournament bowler who’s seen what the USBC certified string pins look like in action, it doesn’t look all that different. I think it will be a great option for bowling centers to continue operating and lower the cost for everyone (maintenance and pricing the games themselves). It’s an accessibility thing to keep bringing in new people to the sport.
string pins is marketed as this way to make bowling cheaper but the string pin bowling alleys cost the same to bowl on as the free fall bowling ally's. it's just a way to increase profits. Bowling centers need to focus on the experience like having food that is actually good. There is one bowling center near me that i will go to just for the food. also having attentive staff and more than one cashier to check people in. waiting in line for an hour before you bowl is really crummy. and waiting 5-10 minutes when your ball doesn't return is frustrating especially when it happens more than once!
@@BassRacerx So you are saying bowling centers are trying to make a profit?? Why would they want to make a profit, when they can just keep paying out mechanics to stand by waiting for a machine to break, and not return your ball for 10 minutes.. I mean seriously, who needs profits.
@@JoeBrrFan my point is that if it's more economical to bowl for the center some of that savings should be passed on to the consumer.
@@BassRacerx If they are going to string pins, the fact they won't be raising rates to pay the mechanics means savings to the bowler.. it's built in savings.
@@JoeBrrFan my experience is the string pin alleys charge the same as the free fall. it may be too soon to tell so in a few years the free fall alleys may charge a premium but so far that is not the case.
In Germany we have a traditional sport called "Kegeln" which is very similar to Bowling, only with 9 pins arranged in a diamond-like shape. All the Kegeln alleys I have ever seen have strings to pull the pins up. Most of the alleys also were owned by individuals or by small organizations like my local parish, so the cost factor apparently played a huge role in this.
That's literally what he said in the video, string-based pin setters have dramatically less moving parts, which makes them dramatically cheaper to operate.
@@LibertyMonk Yes and this commenter added that there have been variants which use string-based pinsetter for many decades. What was your comments supposed to accomplish?
Nine-pin bowler / Kegler here. Strings just don’t bother as much in nine-pin bowling as they’ve always been part of the game for the last decades. Also, the WNBA requires strings to have a certain minimal length and a maximum resistant force, thus reducing erratic pin movement. Additionally, pins are farther spaced apart than in ten-pin bowling, which reduces tangling of the pins. Strings aren’t generally bad, just poorly implemented into ten-pin bowling right now.
yeah, just said the same thing in a different comment. Kegelbahnen were using string setters since more than 30 years ago.
@@AlexusMaximusDE Well the original video wasn't talking about Kraut-ball was it? It was talking about Bowling.
As someone who has been bowling for a long time, has their own equipment, and bowls reasonably well, I definitely have an opinion on the string pins. String pins are certainly less accurate when it comes to the physics of pinfall. When you play to improve at the sport (i.e. you actually hook the ball), you get much more familiar with how the pins fall depending on exactly where you hit them and from what direction. A very slight deviation from the optimal hit may leave a corner pin, which is a very important thing for bowling to stay sufficiently difficult to create a meaningful distinction between good players and professional players. All that said, it's also worth mentioning, as you said, that string pins are way cheaper, thus allowing bowling alleys to exist in markets that would otherwise not support them. For this, they are absolutely better than nothing. As long as there exist freefall centers in reasonable distance of any sizable population centers, most league bowlers get the chance to choose that bowling center over a string pin one. I suspect what will slowly happen over time is that there will be more and more of a mix of both. One or two freefall centers in an area that cater to the needs of league bowlers (nicer computers, maintained lane surfaces, and daily leagues) at a higher cost per game, then any remaining bowling centers would be string pin to capture the more casual audience, and also cheaper to bowl at.
Yeah, casual bowling alleys are already different from league-grade setups anyways- the surfaces are actually oiled in a way that gives casual players an advantage by making more likely to keep the ball near the center, whereas league oiling is completely neutral and doesn't help or hinder in any way
Living in an expensive area where all the bowling alleys have disappeared in the past 15 years, I would definitely prefer string pins over no pins
@@technoturnovers7072 Not so fast, there. There are many different oil patterns out there that are used in competitive play. Some are certainly more challenging, and others more forgiving. Also, a lot of alleys will have league bowlers on the exact same lanes as the casuals, even using the same oil pattern.
Atleast from my experience, locally, my biggest issues isn't the strings as much as those alleys don't properly oil the lanes, and also keep the approach real sticky so people don't lose balance. Almost every time I've bowled with strings, I've stuck on the approach and had to take a step over the line or even fell. Never happened at regular allies.
@@inailedyourmom1 to be fair, those bowling alleys with sticky approaches are probably catering to people who don't own their own bowling shoes, and who have to fuckin' rent them. Except rented bowling shoes fucking SUCK, they don't fit right, and if you have very little experience wearing them then you're just gonna be stumbling around like a jackass. That's definitely me, at least, and I never even learned to tie my shoelaces by the way, I wear velcro or slip-ons, so that's just another big problem.
String pinsetters have been used in Canada for decades, as some of your images show. Those are duckpins in eastern Canada, probably Quebec or New Brunswick, but most Canadian lanes are five-pin, which is not played anywhere outside Canda.
Since my local bowling alley changed from free fall to strings I’ve seen quite a few impossible splits like the 7-10 converted by very ordinary bowlers. I’ve had a couple myself. String bowling is quite similar to 10 Pin Bowling but it’s not the same!
Huh? Strings and the number of pins are different categories.
all spare's are easy with String's
As a bowler for 20 years, the pin action is what is controvercial with string pins. You could hit one pin in a group of two, have the ball not make contact with the second pin and the first pin not make contact with the second and still get the spare because the string wrapped around the other pin. I could shoot a 6-10 and hit light and have the string of the 6 pin wrap around the 10 pin and still knock it over. If string pins did become the norm I would probably still find bowling fun and would just manually adjust my score to not count these kinds of "spares"
Are you also adjusting for the massive changes in oil and the balls themselves? Bowling on a modern lane with a modern ball is a much bigger difference from traditional bowling than a different machine at the far end.
rules wise string hits are valid, probably because nobody wants to deal with the "karen's" or the far too sensitive types that demand slow motion replay if the string hits didn't count. at the end of the day everyone on the pair is under the same competitive conditions and will be robbed and rewarded by the strings to the same degree's. those sanctioned string setups are supposed to almost eliminate weird string hits.
It's just going to be one of the changes to the game we'll have to adjust to. As long as everyone is affected the same then it's still fair.
Having bowled on string pin machines and working at the center that just installed them, for the last 3 months, this happens way less often than what league bowlers worry about. Does it happen, yes, but corrections can be made easily. All of the benefits of using string pin machines far outweigh any of the issues we have had since installing them.
@@britneyharding1233 For the bowling center operator, the drawbacks are zero, because the drawbacks accrue to players. Bowling center operators don't care about string hits. Operators wouldn't mind replacing the pins entirely with a computer simulation that calculates the pin action based on data from some sensor that detects the speed, direction, and spin of the ball as it enters the pin deck. They'd probably commission YT videos like this one to argue that it doesn't make a difference that the pins aren't real. I've already seen arcade machines like this, similar to the string-based bowling arcade machines I saw years ago, before they started being sold as serious bowling equipment.
At 4:05 the 0.035 p-value for the normality test is mentioned which is not the p-value for the t-test. If it was, the 95% confidence interval for the mean would not have spanned 0. It's indicated correctly at 3:41. Edit: From the data shown at 3:41 you can actually calculate the p-value for a standard t-test. My calculations come out to a p-value of 0.26. The reason they don't note the it in the report is likely because in this case it's much less informative than the confidence interval.
Thank you for the clarification, I was really confused about that
Haha commented similarly. Real stats fumble there.
Literally unwatchable.
yeah was about to say since 0.035 would be considered significant
Thank you for this comment - I'm currently doing a stats course at University and was already questioning my sanity 😅
3 bowling alleys within 25 miles of me have closed down over the past 10 years. Wish they would have gone this route, string bowling is better than no bowling.
@@UberFoX why is horse hair less likely to interfere?
Having grown up in SoCal I watched dozens of centers within a 1 hour driving radius shut down in my youth (80's and 90's), but it had a lot more to do with sky-rocketing property values than maintenance costs. Each pair of lanes requires an enormous amount of square footage to provide for the scorekeeping area, the approach, regulation lane length, the pin-setter, and maintenance area behind the pin-setters, times every single pair of lanes. Then you've got the space required for the front-desk, shoe rentals, house ball storage, seating area, etc. The owners of the large properties these alleys were on couldn't afford not to sell the land. String bowling would not have saved them.
I worked as a pin boy in the early '60s. The predominant pins in Maine at the time were candle pins. These are bowled with a smaller (read faster) ball and they flew. On more than one occasion a pin would barely miss my head as I sat above the pit. Never got hot, but had a number of close calls.
A quick correction on the stats, the 0.035 p-value is from a different statistical test in the paper (Anderson-Darling Normality Test), not the paired t-test. It's impossible to have a p-value of 0.035 if the 95% confidence interval includes zero, the p-value would have to be above 0.05 for that statement about the confidence interval to be true.
Thanks for the clarification. I noticed the discrepancy but couldn't figure out how it got messed up
@@grammy1620same here
seems like HAI needs a Brilliant course themselves teehee
Well the need some content for the corrections of the year video
I’m glad you pointed this out so I don’t have to.
The real question is should Free Bird be banned from competitive play. On one side it give a clear and obvious performance enhancement while it’s playing, potentially leading to unfair advantages. On the other hand, it’s a good song and I like it.
The only fair solution is to mandate its play on repeat for every game.
@@DarthCiliatus I understand where you're coming from, but the first half of that song is not really fast and performance enhancing.
Most songs that help with bowling potentially could be because of the tempo.
@@jayer. So just play the solo on loop. Easy.
No Way in H**L......there should be a rule that Free Bird, Comfortably Numb and Green Grass and High Tides be played at full volume, walls and windows be dammed.
I feel like it should be possible to design a less complicated free standing pin setter in addition to the string setter. The string setter will ultimately be the best choice for casual play. Perhaps articulated arms could set the pins and clear downed pins between bowls. It wouldn't be a cheap option, but it would probably be safer.
With the advent of composites it's a little surprising that they haven't been intigrated into or retrofitted into the stackers. I think it would lower their mass and reduce the amount of power it takes to operate them. It could possibly make them safer to maintain and cheaper to repair. One of the downfalls might be that composites wouldn't take the repeated stress of continued use (?). But selective placement could help to solve that.
I wanna see a test done that compares nothing but splits, because I believe that's where string setters are going to fail the most. As far as unfortunate leaves go, a 6-7-10 is a fairly common and requires you to shoot the 6 over and catch the 7. Having strings attached to the pins has got to affect them somehow when you're sending them towards the limit of their stretch.
I used to think that too but recent bowling has showed me that just clipping a pin on the side will often cause it to hit the side wall and bounce out of the pin area to the extent of the string and sweep any pins down that remained standing after the 1st ball in that frame. I've made the 4-7-10 twice and the 6-7-10 once via this type of hit. I've made these two splits a number of times in my 62 years of bowling but it's easier with the strings. What is not easier with strings is the light pocket "swisher" hit that very often strikes on free-fall pins but leaves a nasty little 4-5-7 split with the strings. It does this a LOT. I've seen more light pocket hits leave the 4-5-7 split in the past 2 years than in the previous 60 years combined. Odd thing here is that by leaving this split so often, I am getting a lot better at picking it up. Right now I'm picking it up about 50% of the time, which makes leaving it manageable. I'm 74 years old and bowl in 2 leagues with around a 190 average. Not bad for an old guy. 🙂
Make the strings longer. There's no issue here.
@@CGoody564Then what if a string touches a pin?
@@CGoody564 except for the issues that occur if the strings are too long that were already explained in the video, but thanks. 👍🏻
Pins need to fly at times. Strings are cheap and nasty.
There is _one_ type of bowling that CAN'T use string machines: candlepin. In candlepin bowling (mainly played in the New England region of the United States and the Maritime Provinces of Canada) pins are NOT cleared between each ball of the frame unless they cross the dead wood line. In string machines, that would cause constant tangling that the machine can't untangle, and affect the way the wood behaves on the pin deck. Not being from those regions, I've never bowled candlepin though...
I love candlepin its the only type ill play.
Ten pin shouldn’t either. It’s like a cheap arcade game and ruins the game. I don’t care what the biased USBC says.
Not sure what your point is. While candlepin is called 'bowling' it's also a very different game from what is being discussed here with different rules, a different governing organization, different pins and balls, etc.
And thank goodness for that! ~Greg G
I went to the East Coast specifically to try out candlepin once. It's great.
I've played both with strings and with the complex pin setters. I like the latter better. I've NEVER heard of people being crushed to death before. This is really the very first time I've heard of it. I've had a few strikes myself due to the the strings pulling a few pins down that I didn't hit with the ball or the other pins, no merely their strings. I've also seen loads of time that the strings would get entirely messed up causing somebody having to go to the back to untie them manually and on some bowling tracks I've seen them causing more trouble than a stringless pinsetter. All my own personal experiences with both systems taken in order, this video almost seems like a sales pitch from the manufacturer of string based bowling tracks. The string ones being cheaper is the only point I can fully agree on, and actually makes a perfect sense. But frankly, there it ends. And if I were to run a bowling alley myself I guess money will be the only reason for going for strings.
It doesn’t take much digging to find several examples of pin setters being directly responsible for fatal injuries. There are also several comments explaining that the experience is wildly different for professional and semi-professional bowling as opposed to casual bowling. There is an official standard string length that supposedly has a significant impact on gameplay, but will not necessarily be adopted by a casual bowling alley. It is primarily a cost-cutting measure that has the added benefit of eliminating a genuinely dangerous job that has led to fatalities for as long as the technology for it has existed.
My uncle conducted many youth leagues and worked in many bowling centers, usually at the front desk, in my youth. He had forgotten he had a tie on one time going in the back to fix one of the pinsetters. His tie got caught and the unforgiving pin-setter couldn't care less as it squeezed his neck until he passed out. Luckily one of the regular maintenance guys had finished his break and was able to cut him loose and save his life. Deaths w/ heavy machinery like this happen all the time, bowling is just not one of those sports most people think about when they think of heavy machinery w/ lots of moving parts. I don't know if that's an argument against free-fall pin-setters as better safety mechanisms and requirements could be put on these machines. Personally, as a competitive bowler I much prefer freefall.
@@keyser456 I really don’t see any reason for automatic pin setters to be used in professional bowling over a human pin spotter. Just keep the “pin table” and have a human operate it by hand instead of risking a mechanic’s life every so often. I feel like that’s also far more cost-effective than owning and operating an automatic pin setter. It also has the added benefit of providing some broke student with a job.
I love the hydraulic pin setters! My bowling alley had them until it closed down years ago. Only broke down when you threw a ball at the bar when it was resetting. Never crushed anyone to death either :)
Hydraulic?
There is definitely more fun in fall down pins, but string pins are perfect for non competitive leagues as they’re much cheaper to run thus hopefully less cost to the bowler
And anywhere that hosts tournaments is necessarily going to be getting a lot more income than places that don't.
I think this'll be the key to the future of it. Lanes where professionals go to play and host tournaments can stay as pinsetters But then for your run of the mill bowling alley / arcade place with other games in there in a town that doesn't see all too much footfall to it, going the cheaper and simpler option isn't likely to kill the fun people have but will allow you to massively decrease your costs and stop you shuttering
You really think the cost is gonna go down? Yeah right lmao
You absolutely know it's not going to cost less. The cost will stay the same or they'll raise it by saying they did improvements.
its annoying though when a classic bowling alley gets turned into a string pin setup, i noticed my bowling game instantly got worse
Hi Sam, the machine in the video explanation is actually the Brunswick GSX! Not the AMF so it uses a sensor within the pin table instead of a camera, and the sharkfin only exists on the Brunswick GSX and GSX NXT etc.
The shark fin exists on all GS machines, starting with the GS10. Around the GS96/GS98 the shark got smarter functionality as well.
@@Triley215 haha not too sure on the other GS Series machines other than the GSX since I currently work with those! But yeah looking into the series they did in fact exist in those and its cool to see the technology constantly improving
I dont bowl very often at all and when i do its always just a social event. Still i noticed the change to strings and noted it down as yet another, very small, step towards the modern world of convienece over substance.
The slow and steady decline continues...
What the hell is substance supposed to mean? The video even showed how they did tracked the data across thousands of games and found no difference in the scores. You’re getting the same scores as before, but now the alleys have much cheaper and more reliable machines so they can actually stay open without charging even more absurd prices than they already do. Not to mention that apparently the old machines were dangerous and killed or injured the maintenance workers on a regular basis. This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen people cry over
@@BobbyHill26 You've written more than me...
Man spare conversion, especially splits, look like they'd be much less forgiving with strings (not to mention late hit pocket shots that send a messenger across the lane), but at the same time, I've often wrapped the 6 around the 10 and with a string that would knock it down so at least I'm given a free spare or so from time to time lol I really wanna see them test how many pins get knocked down by a string instead of a pin.
I love that this videos message is absolutely “even if string pins make the game worse, which they don’t, it’s not worth people dying for”
Remember the name “half as interesting” 😂😂
@@sdizzzzzy3509yeah, half as interesting not *_half a torso_*
I actually think it is worth it, but I’m an asshole
they do objectively make the game worse, though, varying string lengths and other factors cause different alleys to have completely variable/inconsistent feels and results to them, making practice in one alley possibly worthless when you go to compete at another..
Guys bowling hasn’t been around too long. We need to give the gene pool time to catch up with the pinsetter tech. In the future we will be left with people who are natural experts at not getting crushed. Adding strings to bowling will result in a generation of highly crushable people, mark my words
Pin Setting Machines are so complicated that AMF the largest maker of machines, also made Nuclear Power Plants.
No, that’s like saying that Boeing’s planes are so complicated that they’re the company that makes Air Force One… they can do multiple things, why shouldn’t they!?
Yet, the pin setting machines kill more people.
@@Adam-326I think what they said is a joke
@@Adam-326 No, more like saying Guitars are so complicated that Yamaha also started making Motorcycles.
Don't you mean: nuclear power plants are so fun that AMF, a manufacturer of them, also makes bowling pin setting machines? 🙂
Interestingly here in germany pins with or without strings are used for similar yet different games. Bowling and Kegeln. Kegeln uses stringed pins a smaller ball without holes and is generally more "lowtech". Its mainly used in some clubhouses since its cheaper and more easy to maintain.
honestly was suprised to see the design of pinsetter used in the video. im more familiar with Brunswick A2 pinstters, which use two wheels to send the pins and ball back to their respective spots
secondary note- the second alley your folks went to to do testing used A2's, or at least something similar. I can tell from the turret above the deck (which is what sets pins on the pindeck)
I honestly think that this Amy had a good chuckle the first few times and is now both happy & annoyed at how she's slowly but surely become a big part of this channel's "fandom". We need to see Amy have a good time and do weird stuff. She has one of the weirdest but best jobs in the world and her family and friends must be both confused & envious.
Well, her main role keeps being writing the scripts for videos like this one. A bit more conventional in that regard.
2:35 shows the picture of "kegeln" (9-pin bowling), mainly played in europe. The pins are arranged in a square and the middle pin is called king, thats why hes got a crown on his head. The string pins are commonly used in the kegel-sport
These are the old pins (dünne Kegel / 2000er Kegel) that are still used for Bohle and Schere. In Classic, there’s a “new” shape of pins (dicke Kegel / Top-Kegel) and all of them look alike, even the king pin. Doesn’t make your comment invalid though :)
I was a mechanic on QAMF spotters up to the 82-90 XLI for 10 years, so I am very intimate with the economics of actually maintaining a bowling alley. Freefall pinspotters are a higher capital investment, but are really not expensive to maintain. String setters require just as much maintenance and adjustment, though I suppose the PM is a bit "easier" to do, so it could be done by a less skilled mechanic. Like anything, you just have to keep up on the PM and I only ever worked at one place which made an actual effort to do so. Every other alley tried to skimp out on maintenance (typical know-it-all managers and beancounters who have never turned a wrench and think they know how to do your job better than you do) which quickly resulted in the machines regularly breaking down, requiring long downtimes with more expensive repairs. Especially during the break-in period on a new spotter, they require daily tweaks and cleaning and lubrication while they break in. Once they are broken in they run extremely reliably on the scheduled PM. As for how they feel to bowl against.... The pins behave so differently they may as well be completely different games. I wouldn't expect a layman to be able to see the nuance, but anyone who has spent years in the industry would tell you for sure. The "high end" stringfall lanes that are closer in behavior to freefall lanes are nearly equivalent in ongoing cost. The truly cheap stringspotters may as well be carnival games.
I completely agree with you. I too worked maintenance at a bowling center. These machines were his livelihood. He treated them with the respect they deserved.
I worked on AMF pinsetters back in the 80’s as a high school job. I once got lifted by the sweep and trapped for a few minutes while a coworker released the brake on the motor and manually lowered the sweep. The place had zero safety policies and lots of injuries. Eventually I cut the end of my finger off trying to reset the pin distributor and the place closed down soon afterward.
Hopefully you learned a lesson about sticking your fingers into moving parts, too.
Evidently you were never trained properly or didn't care to follow procedures. Bad deal there. Brunswick machines are a lot more dangerous than AMF.
Germany by the way has a similar alternative to bowling called „Kegeln“ where the pins have always had strings. It has different rules and another ball so not completely the same 😅
I'm a German too, Kegeln was forbidden in the US, which is why Bowling was invented to bypass this law. But I don't know why.
@@oevers Legends say that it was forbitten because Ninepin (Kegeln) was gambling but Bowling is pure skill. Doesn't make sense? For me neither. But it's America, it doesn't have to. 😅 And by the way: "Gut Holz!" (So von Kegler zu Kegler 😉)
@@TheKeeeks97iirc they blanket banned the game of Kegeln bc people would gamble on their performance, so they set an extra pin and declared it a new game that wasn't outlawed (perhaps they even still gambled😉)
This truly seems half as interesting, I love it
When I was sent to Germany, My unit had some time off. We went into a local bar. They had a bowling alley that was set up with 9 pins and strings used. The 9 pin game wasn't about strikes . The game was unusual as it had a double pyramid. Winning the game is down to hitting 1 pin, 2pins etc. up to 9 pins. the team that gets the entire cycle first is the winner. It looks fairly fun watching the locals play their hearts out.
In my area you won't find any string pinsetters. We have mostly A-2s which are known for being absolute tanks. I bowl regularly and malfunctions are few and far between. It's all about preventative maintenance on the machines as well as qualified mechanics. Eventually I would like to become a pinsetter mechanic myself. Strings CANNOT take over bowling.
They won’t here in Vegas either. You can’t even find a pinsetter in any place that claims to be a bowling alley. You can find some pinsetters in casinos and arcades, but you get the real thing when you go to a bowling alley in Vegas. I hope that never changes.
Played on strings once and felt like the strings were preventing the pins from falling when they wobbled several times. Literally those pins were just sort of hanging at an angle. Also felt like in a split situation where a pin *should* shoot across and hit the pin on the other side, the strings almost always prevented that from happening. Although in other cases, it did seem like the strings were taking out some pins that shouldn't have. So maybe the conclusion here should actually be that sometimes when things are *statistically* identical, they may still be *fundamentally* different because of a failure of the statistics to capture all of the potential data. Now, maybe the machine I played at had the wrong string length or improper tension on the strings or something, but that just proves my point... there are too many unaccounted-for variables to quantify to make a judgement based on statistics in this case.
FYI Pins off their base hanging at an angle are counted as DOWN PINS. String machines sometimes get this wrong, so just alert staff to do a score correction and move on. I can see how someone who doesn't know this rule could get frustrated thinking they've been screwed, but that's not actually the case.
Then there was something wrong with the machine. The strings are completely slack and will not hold a pin up or restrict its movement until retracted. I worked on Qubica machines for a few years.
@@ThatOldGrey Which is part of the whole problem. Pins sitting on a floor behave in a certain way when hit. And they will almost always behave in that way. Pins with strings on them suddenly have these forces on them that are not just different... they are unpredictable because the variables are infinite. Is the string too heavy, too light, too long, too short, is there not enough slack in the system... and some of those variables can be introduced with time as parts wear or slip out of alignment. So now we have a machine that is sheer simplicity for resetting pins... but it has introduced chaotic complexity into the fundamental gameplay itself.
@@patreekotime4578 This comes down more to the maintenance schedule of the strings than anything. All pinsetters use the same 1/4" nylon string. When a pin is initially strung on the machine, it is typically strung with 72" of string. The pinsetters are designed to release up to 54" of slack, and this allows the maintenance team to remove a small amount of string right above the pin (where it is most likely to break) 8-10 times before having to restring the whole machine again. If maintenance teams don't frequently inspect for strings that are likely to break and the string breaks, then the whole machine has to be restrung with new string for that pin. It's only if the string length for any individual pin drops below 54" that you would ever have a problem, and that should never happen with a regualr maintenance schedule. It's not the strings that cause the problems, it's the cheap/lazy management of the bowling centre.
@@athletixbc which couldnt happen without the strings lol
I can’t help but feel pin setters could be modernised and simplified so you could keep them without so many of the disadvantages
If you can design a good pinsetter that is simpler and cheaper to operate than the "traditional" ones, I'm sure people would love to see it. It could solve this whole dilemma! But you'd need more than just a vague "do the old thing but better". Maybe a strong magnet at the top of the pin and electromagnets in the setter? It'd almost certainly be more expensive and more complicated than a string setter, but if the extra cost is less than the amount of extra traffic you get because the pins going everywhere is more fun, it's worth it.
They've been improved over the years, and probably could be improved further, but it's always gonna be harder to pick up the pins mechanically rather than to simply pull a string.
I’ve got an idea that still needs some llfleshing out….magnets! More specifically, electromagnets
@@extragoogleaccount6061 I was thinking about that too. Like a variation on the automatic pin setter that eliminates all the extra machinery behind the lanes. Like, you could have a camera to see which pins have fallen, then it would activate the magnets for those slots and it would draw them back in place.
@@keiyakins Not a bad idea, but adding magnets to the pins could potentially change how they "work" when struck, so that is a whole other question.
My local Round1 uses string pinsetters. I saw them in operation and it really confused me at first to see pins just stand themselves back up, but it seems perfectly fine otherwise. Not crushing bowling alley operators seems like a huge plus, too.
they started switching over to those some time ago, i think last year or so? only a few of them seem to have it so far, most still have a mix of 96s, 98s, and AMF setters from what i've heard though.
the big thing about string pins is that you can knock the pins over with the strings alone without the pin actually hitting it. This makes it frustrating for other competitive bowlers because that is impossible on free fall.
I once bowled on a lane with no pin setter. Basically when it wasn’t your turn to bowl, you would pick up the pins and stand them up or clear them, and roll the ball back to the person bowling. It “worked” as a zero-cost way of resetting pins, but gameplay was slow, and cumbersome.
Did you have to walk down the alley?
As a front desk worker at a free falling pins bowling alley who comes from a family of bowlers, the string pinsetters don’t feel right to me, and I don’t know if I’d ever want to bowl on them if it’s not duckpin bowling tbh. But also calling calls about stuck balls or pinsetter issues to the back is probably the best part of my job so…
its like if they took away the zamboni and jumbotron from hockey stadiums and replaced them with LEDs and some new truck, yeah it may get the job done better but theres a point where something is unique enough to deserve preservation, unfortunately anything after the 60s of any kind despite how much has taken place between then and now and cultural influence is regarded as "dated" and marked for the landfill to make way for the blander technology and designs. high pressure sodiums lights are objectively worse than LED but still have enough charm to deserve to somewhat exist in walkways or gardens, just not freeways and roads
How do you pick up a 7/10 the-pins don’t fly around the back . Anything can happen this is a scam .
I hate them. It’s not fun at all and it’s completely inauthentic. If my local alley switches, that will be the end of me going there.
@blaniac6591 Its not like you spend $3k a month to bowl. I don't think they'd care if you leave if it saves them more money by switching to strings.
@@aezzil3536 most successful bowling alleys are only so successful because they host tournaments, tournament guys are going to want to play on these lanes even less than the standard population. If at all.
I bowl competitively, and I have to say that it seems to me that the strings are more of a cost cutting measure. At alleys with strings, the bowling budget is low to begin with and so of course the experience is worse because they don’t oil the lanes. If the physics checks out with the same oil patterns and lane conditions then that’s fine- but i’m more concerned about the overall drop in quality at most mainstream facilities.
Shirley the place is cheaping out on they're most important equipment are putting that money towards all of the other expensive maintenance... right?
How ironic, I play in a weekly league in the UK and the alley just refurbished all the lanes, replacing the mechanical machines with strings and they are utterly appalling, getting twisted and bringing down pins that would never have fallen otherwise. Literally ruining the game for the sake of saving on maintenance fee's/wages. I truly cannot express my hatred towards these things enough
Same here. I would consider playing on lanes where I'd go down lane to set them up every shot than strings. I'd get even more exercise in than I normally would playing the game. Also with manual lanes you could just practice spares
So would you rather they just closed? Seems like that would ruin the game far more.
its either strings or no alley at all now.
If people died in the old machines, then I'd rather you game be ruined by these new ones tbh
I'm not a pro bowler by any means, but I feel like string pins just aren't as good as free pins. It almost feels like the string absorbs some energy from the pin when its hit and can prevent me from picking up certain spares. String pins also seem to work better with crappy house balls and not custom ones designed for spin. Even my custom house ball for throwing straight shots doesn't do as well with string pins. I have no idea why but that's just what it feels like.
It's absolutely true that certain spares are more difficult on string machines. The spares I'm talking about 7-10 and 4-6 where you have to shoot a pin directly sideways or get a lucky bounce. Just remember, everybody is bowling on the same lane with the same pinsetter, so everyone has the same advantge or disadvantage. While a few select spares may be more difficult, I think I get more strikes on strings because a string will catch a pin and knock it over.
From what I experienced as a really bad player. I never jammed a classical mechanism neither I seen anyone doing so. I have playes twice on strings... Jammed 6 times in one game. Both tracks next to me jammed at least once. My feeling is that it changes the keel dynamic. But with all the problems I endured, I really feel it breaks the game dynamic.
The german versions of Bowling Alleys, "Kegelbahnen" have been operating with string setters for more than 30 years.
this animated diagram you guys made for this is actually insanely cool I am fucking appreciating it
Jarad Owens likes this.
There's a whole video on KZhead about how pin setters work, utilising lots of animation. I assumed the HAI video reused that video's animations.
I've been bowling on a string pin sport shot league since maybe around September. It's been long enough for me to be able to tell when the string pins screw me over, as well as when they give me that extra luck to sweep down that last pin. It's pretty balanced because on one hand the strings can knock down pins unintentionally while on the other hand there are a few good shots that won't strike because the pins are slightly held back. the lanes also break practically every time you use them.
I went recently to a bowling ally that had strings. I can't say it felt as good as traditional pins. They certainly didn't seem to move correctly when hit with a ball. But I think the biggest issue with that bowl was the fact they didn't give out bowling shoes so I had to play in your normal shoes. As I slide the last bit of my action I couldn't do that so I had to adjust it and that was must weirder than the strings.
The only place I had seen bowling pins on strings before this video was in some arcades that had a mini coin-op bowling setup called Bowlingo in the '90s. I had no idea it had found its way into "big" bowling on a large scale. I guess it's been a while since I did any bowling.
I didn't know they had full size string bowling either, theres a bowling allley around here that has it but its "duckpin" bowling which is similar in size to those Bowlingo machines
Stats teacher here. At 3:58 I thought it weird that you'd get a p of 0.035 and the 95% CI would include zero, so I found the report to check. The p-value you're reporting here is from an Anderson-Darling test run to check the assumption that the differences came from a normal distribution. That is _not_ testing the significance of the difference in means. You can actually see the label "Anderson-Darling Normality Test" at 3:42. Since the null hypothesis for the Anderson-Darling test is "Data from normal distrib", they slayed that null, and then did NOT do a t-test, because you need to have data from a normally distributed population for a t-test. Instead they identified a distribution that the data fit better ("three parameter loglogistic distrib") and then calculated a 95% CI on the mean (and median) using that distribution. The CIs for both mean and median of differences contained zero, so they found no significant difference from zero. That's similar to doing a t-test intuitively, but it is not doing a t-test. Looking forward to seeing this addressed in your next errors video! :)
Oh shoot hit play after writing this comment. Sorry to the writer who had studied stats. Sucks to make a big public error like this. 😂
6:23 Lol and then the stats stuff is a segue to a sponsor. Oh shit!
F in chat for all the automatic pin setters that gave us all that enjoyment over the years, plus the mechanical marvel that they were, you will be sorely missed.
Especially when you break something with the ball going too fast
My buddy used to travel around and maintain bowling machines . Those early mechanical units are a masterpiece of design , they do so much decently reliably with nothing but one or 2 motors a bunch of switches and relays . I think from amf they only made 2-3 models of the free fall types ever . They did however update those models throughout the years. Witch ended in fully electronic control in the 80s since then in north america bowling has dropped in popularity so there hasn't been much change to most systems since the 80s . Now amf doesn't sell parts for the older model so there are people that just go and salvage parts from defunct Allys . My buddy just unloaded most of the parts and info he had veen hanging on to for 30+ years
For the novice bowler strings may not make a difference, but for the professionals, I'd love to see the data on the pin difference.
The USBC doing a study on "String Pins" is like the NFL doing a study on concussions.
Stat-head wannabe here. 4:05 The p-value you quote here is actually for a normality test (Anderson-Darling), not the t-test itself. Also, if the p-value was
ive always liked how hi tech the robotic pinsetters were but also slightly concerned with how dangerous they look
I used to be a bowling alley mechanic and was nearly crushed to death by one of our more finicky machines. Even the best machines require constant maintenance to run. Candle pin bowling is not as pretty but seems to be the safest and most economical route available for alleys with very narrow profit margins.
Former Pinchaser here. the machines normally have 21 Pins in them just in case one gets stuck, ejected, or broken. More likely to have a full set of ten and then one just waits its turn.
I am avoiding Bowling arenas that have pins on strings. It just sucks not seeing them fly around freely.
Pin action is a big part of the game and one thing that makes the game fun. Getting a messanger screaming across the lane to take out the 10 pin is amazing!
Have you ever seen Ninepin in Europe? The alleys are all with stringed pins and the pin action is insane. For seeing pins flying around, the ground plate is way more important than the strings. Since I play Ninepin for more than a decade now and also like playing Bowling with friends (allmost all alleys here use stringed pins) I don't see any difference.
@@TheKeeeks97 I´m also playing Ninepin in Europe, Germany to be exact. I´m playing competitively since more than 20 years and also do lane preparation and repairs. I also played classic 10 pin bowing competitively for around 10 years and lanes with strings and pinsetter lanes. From my experience I can tell, that all 3 types of lanes feel different to play or better said need to be played different to achieve better results. But the real reason (to some extent) why Ninepin pins fly around that much actually is physics, the kinetic energy the ball thrown towards the pins has is quite the same for the smaller and lighter Ninepin balls compared to the bigger and heavier Tenpin balls (E=1/2m*v²), because Ninepin balls are thrown faster the lower weight doesn´t matter or on the other hand the player has a natural limit to the amount of energy he can transfer to the balls. So the only variable dertermening pin action in comparison is the weight of the pins with the Ninepin pins beeing lighter at around 2 pounds compared to the Tenpin pins at around 3.5 pounds, effectively resulting in almost double the pin action for Ninepin pins without factoring in other effects.
@@Genesis19623 Thanks for the information. I must correct you in one point: The Ninepin ball ways 6.28 pounds (2.85 kg) and I goes the Bowling ball is even more heavier. 😉
@@ambiarock590 - i've watched a league with the old 8230s which were replaced by strings and the pin action and messengers had NO change...plus when I was a serious bowler 30 years ago, over 90% of my strikes were "10 in the pit" so I NEVER relied on messengers to artificially inflate my average (which was 217)
In the early 70's, my parents became good friends with the owner of an AMF alley in Bellevue, NE. We were all avid bowlers, I was just entering Jr. High. I learned everything I could about the pinsetters and worked the machines on weekends and some evenings. I read all the manuals. The only part we weren't allowed to work on was the control box due to high voltage. Some of the other high school kids would call if they had issues. I climbd all into the machines to unjamb pins and clear blackouts, etc. OSHA was just forming, it was crazy dangerous. High tork three phase motors, catch points, rotaing shafts. Ironically, I spent 30 years working for OSHA and was aware of numerous fatalities and severe injuries. I was fortunate I avoided those fates. Things were very different back in the day.
I worked in a bowling alley in highschool back in 1968 or 69. I never got hurt plus made repairs the owner didn't think I could do. You did have to be careful when working on top of a moving pin setter but just pay attention to what you're doing. There is a power cutoff switch at every machine.
My experience with string bowling alley is from small Chech town. After day of studing (was there for Erasmus exchange) we were going to a bar, drinking Czech beer and playing bowling. It costed us pennies (around 2.5$ pp with I think top 6ppl on a lane) it was amazing experiance and for that price I would be going there 3-4 a week with my friends but bowling alley in my city during afternoon hours is closer to 8$ pp
When you say Czech beer, do you mean the real Budweiser?
Plzeň maybe
I'm afraid this might ruin candlepin. An important part of candlepin is that the down pins or "dead wood" is left on the field after each roll. Strings will definitely interfere with the action of the dead wood.
Candlepin setters are simpler since they dont need to pick up pins to clear the deck.
I think you're missing the point of the complexity here. A candlepin setting machine would not have so much of the mechanisms to go wrong. I play duckpin bowling (very different from candlepin) at a very old place, and while the pin setter is automatic....I would almost call it 'semi-automatic' because the player does have to initiate the sweep and set with a button and a new frame with another button - which is much simpler (it just picks up what it there and sweeps and sets it back down, or with the other button sweeps them all and sets a new whole set. Still complex but a bit less so)
No chance, I’m positive. It would ruin the physics and would tangle too often, so it won’t be attempted. No strings attached, the way it should be! 🙂 ~Greg G
@@CandlepinBowlingNetwork its worth doing in some places especially if you need to put in smaller lanes but some older machines should be preserved, its like when they killed the jumbotron
Really slick sponsor segment with how you integrated it with those crazy stats metrics, making me wonder WTF those were. Very smooth! Great vid too. First time finding your channel and I enjoyed it. Thank you!
I played at a string setter once… someone in my group managed to pick up a 7-10 split by swinging the 10 around the back into the 7… Weird experience, but I appreciate the statistical analysis that tells me that was an outlier
I work at a bowling alley and we had our hours cut because we weren’t making a lot of money. Stringed pins might help a lot. But also we’d lose half our techies and that won’t be fun
The machinery costs are a canard. It's EXCLUSIVELY about cutting staff
Might lose a lot of regulars too. If my alley switches, I’ll stop going. The pins bounce around weird with the strings attached. Seeing them bounce in a direction they shouldn’t have gone in kills the fun for me. For me, it’s like shooting a gun that’s not sighted in; what’s the point?
I wonder if you could eliminate the strings by using magnets? Like a mechanism sweeps in and an electromagnet would draw the tops of the pins up into position for resetting.
Yes but it'd require more electricity & probably make them more complicated
The problem with magnets is that all of the pins would be attracted, not just the one you want in a specific spot. Also magnets in the pins would make them heavier, and depending on where they're placed, may upset the center of gravity. Pins are very precisely shaped and weighted to get the proper "pin action" when hit.
Search on KZhead for unicorn pinsetter to see a Mendes magnetic one in action.
This is what I was wondering. Electromagnets on strings and a steel cap on the pin. The machines already have computer vision, so it's possible you could individually activate the electromagnets to pick up pins which have scattered. I wonder if it would work, and if anyone's tried it.
Magnets would make the pins stick Better solution would be to have a "drone" reset the pins "by hand"
European nine-pin bowler here. I totally understand why professional ten-pin bowlers are upset at strings, mostly because of the extremely weird and sometimes erratic pin action. Nine-pin bowling has had strings since the beginning of automation of pinsetting and it hasn’t caused any significant problems or weird pin action. Why? Because the WNBA (World Ninepin Bowling Association) requires strings to have a minimal length so that the pins rarely bounce back. Additionally, pins are spaced farther apart than in ten-pin bowling, which also makes a big difference. Strings tangling happens every now and then, but doesn’t ruin the game as you can mostly just walk to the pin deck and untangle them yourself. Sure, strings pull on some pins like a lasso and make them fall, but that’s been part of the game (9 pins) for the last decades. My point is that strings aren’t bad per sé. The way they’re being implemented into ten-pin bowling right now is ruining the game and the fun for most people, which I completely understand. Nine-pin bowling (not the Texan kind) shows how bowling with strings can be fun and intuitive. I can see strings being adopted as a standard for ten pins as well in the future, but hopefully with some modifications based on strings with nine pins.
Growing up in the 70s and early 80s our local bowling alley used string setters. Never knew there was any other kind until I was a teen and went with my friends to a bowling alley in another town.
Honestly more than half as interesting, if I ever find myself at a string-pin bowling alley I'll know it's cool now. Thanks!
As a bowler for 21 years: recreationally, I don't have an issue with them. If I were recreationally bowling on string pins I'd just adjust my score to not count any spares that were made by the strings. I would not be okay with tournament and league play using strings
@@ambiarock590 this take seems to be appearing a lot in this comment section and I can see why, outside of tournaments rules are just allowed to be looser aren't they (are they? I wouldn't know)
But it’s not about the rules, it’s about the equipment. It’s like if they never allowed 10’ hoops & regulation basketballs to be sold to the public. How does anyone prepare to play professionally when the equipment is different? I wouldn’t want to play with a wnba ball & a 9’ rim, that changes the game enough to make it something else.
@@ambiarock590 If the entire tournament is played on strings everything cancels out.
Here in Brazil I've only seen bowling alleys with the string system. My childhood dream was to see an alley without it hahaha
One thing to point out about pinsetters...I was pinsetter mechanic back in the 80s and 90s...there were really two main types then (Brunswick A2s and AMF 82-70s). The approach to operation between these two types was vastly different! Brunswick A2s are mostly mechanically driven where the AMF 82-70s had an electronic "brain" that ran some electro mechanical switches to control the table & sweep. The pin distribution & setting methods were *completely* different though (I heard it was due to copyrights between the two companies). I am partial to the AMFs because that is all I worked on. I knew some mechanics for A2s and they agreed that the AMFs were a simpler design overall. Both were reliable if maintained and both sucked if they weren't. The "new" Brunswick GSXs (shown in the graphic in the video but the actual video parts were the AMF machines) really seem to be a mix between the two designs from the past. I will say the belt systems for distributing the pins looks like it would be highly prone to jams and high maintenance, but that is only a guess. I'd like to see some quantitative data on them...
I've only played one game with pins on strings and that was on a cruise ship. This gets more complicated (cruise ship was Norwegian) because it was more duckpin in terms of bowling ball (but the pins didn't look overly duck pin so it's just one of those odd systems). I didn't really give it much thought as it seemed a logical idea for a surface that could occasionally sway with the waves.
But the sound is the best part of bowling!
The sharp crack of a nice flush strike is amazing!
@@ambiarock590 It still makes the same sound on strings if you throw 14+ pounds and have any kind of speed or revs. Having people that can barely break 100 isn't a very good sample test group.
My friend owns a local string bowling alley. The string saves so much investment money, so they can set the cost to play way cheaper than other bowling alleys. Thus allowing more people/new customer to try bowling and fall in love with the sport with a cheaper entry point! 😊
Great short term, And in 3-5 years when there are no more league bowlers, they can finally shut down their house for good
yeah but we shouldn't replace every machine, the history of the 1960s-1990s is disregarded in a scary amount, even if something is objectively worse an example or a few should still be preserved
@@playdiscgolf1546this is outside of the US. So they can introduce bowling to more people, and if they want to go pro/focus on bowling, they can go to a different bowling alley with legit pin setter. My friend is focusing on general public and casual bowler, not pro/bowling enthusiast 😁
Here in Brazil string pinsetters are very common in bowling alleys around the country for a long time, it's not even a new thing here. We even have some local companies producing these string machines, with great quality and reliability. I used to bowl in an alley that has Brunswick's GSX and they always have problems acquiring parts for maintenance, and because of that they rarely have all the lanes ready to bowl. I don't care about bowling on string pinsetters, because the foundation of the sport is still there.
If they need to do it to survive, then that makes sense. Also less workplace injuries is a great thing.
The injuries are solved by hiring people that are having artisanal coffee on their break instead of artisanal meth The machines all have kill switches that you use before climbing in. Not hard.
Amy probably deserves her own half as interesting video at this point. Maybe a wendover mini dock