Hey all, I'm trying to make that game you may have seen at carnivals, fairs, or most any Greyhound station. Basically, there's a big metal disc, rotating, with prize pucks on it. In most cases, the pucks are actually prizes in petri-style dishes, but in mine they're just plastic resin pucks of varying sizes and trade-in values. Anyway, there's an arm in the center of the platform, and a button to make it sweep out, pushing the pucks into the prize chute. You can sweep out a little bit at a time, or all at once, but beyond a certain point the arm continues sweeping out, holds its position, then returns to center. A5 has collision detection (duh), and the shapes are cylinders. Is it possible to have a cylindrical bounding box, and use vectors to push the cylinders in the right direction (I could use help on that, or I could figure it out eventually with a physics book), until the distance between the origin of the two are equal to the average diameter (i.e. if a cylinder 2 wide is against a cylinder 4 wide, have them repel each other until the centers are 3 apart).

Also, even if I could do that without physics, how would I have the cylinders rotate with the platform. If I just have them drop a couple quants onto the platform in the beginning, would they inherit the rotation of the main platform, if I set the friction high enough? I know that's a lot of questions, but I'm seriously addicted to this game, and it would save me a ton of money, not to mention a trip to Illinois each summer, if I could play it on my computer. On my home page, it's the Sweeper game. Here is that URL:

My webpage about skill games

I really do appreciate the help. Whether or not I need the physics engine, does anyone know of any good books or tutorials that would have the pertinent information to the respective solution?

Thanks so much,
eastham
tricopticus@yahoo.com