Computer-generated Raking Technique

[raimundo]

Im no mathematician, I come at it from the perspective of an artist. to me the key thing is not the rake but the 'negative space' where the pick gets out of the way and lets the pins find thier own path down.

that is to say raking is lifting pins and then letting them fall as freely as possible.

So for instance I look at Safty Off's optimal rake and wonder what that would look like on a steel shaft.

[Safety0ff]

So for instance I look at Safty Off's optimal rake and wonder what that would look like on a steel shaft.

This model is supposed to be of a diamond rake, see: http://theamazingking.com/lock-rake.html
I see it more like someone using a falle deep curve pick to push up on the chosen pin and then ripping the pick out of the lock.

The reason this stuff is somewhat unpractical is that someone won't necessarily stop raking after raking it 6 or 7 times, so for every additional stroke you take the best strategy changes:
5 pins:
if you're going to rake 4 times: 1-1-2-1
if you're going to rake 5 times: 1-1-4-2-1
if you're going to rake 6 times: 1-1-4-2-1-3
if you're going to rake 7 times: 1-2-1-5-4-2-1

The only when going from 5 to 6 it doesn't change, that is to say, you can only add onto the sequence because you can't go back in time to change which pins you raked.

A few interesting things see might be:
- to program it such that the strategy is built up by choosing the position most likely to open the lock.
- to generate the data for a 5 pin lock up to 10 rakes (may take some time...)

[Safety0ff]

I've modified my program slightly to search for rakes by adding on pin #'s to the end of a combo (essentially "building up",) and it seems to converge towards:

Code: Select all

1-1-1-1-1..(as many 1's as you want)...1-1-1-4

(percentage depending on # of pins.)

I suppose you'd have to apply some game theory to figure out the "best" combination, but it boils down to whether you want to maximise opening the lock after each pass of the rake or after (X) passes of the rake.

Just for fun:
The percentages of successful openings, blue is the guy that goes all 1's, red is the guy that followed the best combo to that number of rakes.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg93 ... f/4pin.png
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg93 ... f/5pin.png
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg93 ... f/6pin.png
Note that the values are not continuous!

As usual the, data is very flawed, so this is to be taken with a grain of salt.