Frank Lee, a professor at Drexel University's Westphal College of Media and Design, brought a five-year obsession to a successful conclusion on Friday: play the world's largest game of Pong, using the side of a building in Philadelphia.
Lee pulled it off on Friday, using the north wall of the Cira Centre, which over looks Philly's 30th Street Station downtown. Lee and colleagues Gaylord Holder, Marc Barrowclift and Santiago Ontanon wrote software that manipulated the LEDs attached to Cira Center in 2005. (These light the building in different colors, to celebrate sports teams or holidays or to support awareness months.) About 400 of the building's 1500 LEDs were used to render the game.
A Pong tournament on the side of the building kicked off Philly Tech Week; contestants played from the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Yes, yes, the Rocky steps) about half a mile away across the Schuykill River.
Spoiler alert: Left paddle wins in a cliffhanger, 3-2. Right paddle choked it away, IMHO.
Pong Over Philly: Drexel Professor to Transform Cira Centre into Classic Arcade Game [Drexel University news, via Polygon]
Watch a Game of Pong Played on the Side of a 29-Story Building