In Memoriam: Wystan
"Grid Graph" in Hill Auditorium, tracking Wolverine football plays at Madison, Wisconsin, November 17, 1923.
The Wolverines traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to meet the Badgers on their home turf. Ann Arbor fans who couldn't make the trip could "watch" the action on Hill Auditorium's Grid Graph, which tracked movements of pigskin and players as they were telegraphed from the distant battleground and relayed to a rowdy student audience by volunteer helpers on this stage.
The Wolverines won the game -- narrowly -- 6-3. Did the Ann Arbor crowd rush the virtual field afterward?
(Names of Wisconsin's players are on the left -- of Michigan's, on the right.)
(Here, in New York City, is a "Playograph," the baseball version of the Grid Graph, from twelve years earlier: www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162963379/)
A quick Google search finds references to Grid Graph use at Harvard, Dartmouth and Clemson. Dartmouth's model cost a thousand dollars, in 1925.
"Grid Graph" in Hill Auditorium, tracking Wolverine football plays at Madison, Wisconsin, November 17, 1923.
The Wolverines traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to meet the Badgers on their home turf. Ann Arbor fans who couldn't make the trip could "watch" the action on Hill Auditorium's Grid Graph, which tracked movements of pigskin and players as they were telegraphed from the distant battleground and relayed to a rowdy student audience by volunteer helpers on this stage.
The Wolverines won the game -- narrowly -- 6-3. Did the Ann Arbor crowd rush the virtual field afterward?
(Names of Wisconsin's players are on the left -- of Michigan's, on the right.)
(Here, in New York City, is a "Playograph," the baseball version of the Grid Graph, from twelve years earlier: www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162963379/)
A quick Google search finds references to Grid Graph use at Harvard, Dartmouth and Clemson. Dartmouth's model cost a thousand dollars, in 1925.