Tag Archives: table tennis

Clever Table Tennis racket lets you add weights to its hollow handle for better control

Posted on by

Table tennis is a game that requires absolute coordination between your hands and eyes. You need to watch the ball, predict its path, and make sure your racket aligns exactly at the right position and angle to ensure the ball goes exactly where you want it to go. A lot of this hand-eye coordination happens without you really knowing or noticing, but sometimes your hand just moves a little too fast or slow for your liking. The reason? Well, maybe it’s your racket.

If you’ve ever played golf or gone bowling, you know how much influence weight has on your performance. Go for something with less weight, and your hands can often miscalculate their trajectory. More weight usually means better control, but too much and your hand really gets influenced by the weight rather than the other way around. The Nimbus brings that strategy to the table tennis racket. With the ability to add weights to the racket’s handle, the Nimbus lets you fine-tune your gameplay for better control. The weights can alternatively be replaced with a tracking module that helps you track your racket trajectory in 3D for post-game analysis.

Designer: Shubhangi Chuhadia

Rendered on KeyShot: Click Here to Download Your Free Trial Now!

The Nimbus racket comes with an ergonomic design that’s characterized by a streamlined form that transitions seamlessly from grip to paddle. The grip, however, has a hollow slot in it, which lets you insert weights into the racket. Made from titanium, these weights range between 2.5 and 5 grams, giving your handle a distinct heft that can influence your gameplay. Choose the weight that benefits your game the most, and once you’ve perfected it, downgrade to a lower weight to train your muscles and reflexes.

“I began by studying the needs of players with a learning mindset and focused on enhancing both digital and physical elements to improve gameplay. This involved developing a customizable racket and improving the handle’s ergonomics for extended play”, said designer Shubhangi. “After extensive rapid prototyping and testing, I proceeded to refine the surface to ensure durability during prolonged use.”

To help further improve your game, Shubhangi even created a tracker module, made from plastic. When inserted, the module can track your paddle’s position, movement, speed, and tilt to help you understand your technique and improve upon it. The Nimbus is conceptual for now, but Shubhangi mocked up a prototype to test the product’s performance and ergonomics. Here’s hoping that we see a realized product on the market sometime soon!

The post Clever Table Tennis racket lets you add weights to its hollow handle for better control first appeared on Yanko Design.

Replace your swanky work desk with this inventive ping pong table and never look back

Posted on by

Arguably, tables are an integral part of home furnishing. Dining tables, coffee tables, nightstands, low tables, and even work tables; each of them has its own layout, requirement and usefulness. Presenting a modern dimension to the work table, Strol x cloudandco –studios brainchild of designers Yeo Junyoung and Yeongkyu Yoo respectively – have designed a ping pong table that can also facilitate work from home.

Rightfully called the Play Table, it is categorically designed for a home than a recreational space. To ensure it finds a rightful place at home where stylish and contemporary tables rule the roost, the ping pong table does a multipurpose gimmick in a modern design outfit. Kicking back the tradition of a single-purpose table, the Play Table gears up for a game of tennis and in an instant transforms into a work table complete with wireless charging and storage for your stationery and supplies.

Designer: Strol x cloudandco

At first sight, it’s a simple table. Behind the sliding genius, however, lies an entertainment table. Its top is made from high-density HPL coated solid birch wood while the slides are finished with an intricate 8mm cut of maple. The table legs are made from aluminum with steel castors that make it effortless to move the table, in case you choose to relocate its position.

The interactive table is ready for a ping pong game as soon as a provided magnetic rope net is installed. Post the game, the net is easily removed and along with the rackets and the ball is popped into the storage opened up by sliding apart the two halves of the tabletop. When closed, the table instantly because a space for focus. The surface is provided with a wireless charger and the hidden compartments also stores all the cables, power strip, and still have space for other supplies you’d want to keep safe. Interestingly, when you have co-workers home, you can also sectionalize the table with supplied partitions and your little office table is ready for a work desk for a small team.

The post Replace your swanky work desk with this inventive ping pong table and never look back first appeared on Yanko Design.

This paddle strays away from tradition

Posted on by

The thing with game equipment is that you can’t radically push the design to be better because it offers a competitive advantage. There’s a reason the racquet, or the football is shaped the way it is. It isn’t to make the game easier, it’s to present a challenge. However, I’d like to believe there’s still an opportunity to redesign these products, even if just for recreational playing. Take a look at the table tennis paddle for instance. I for one (as a self-proclaimed amateur) don’t know which way to hold it. Additionally, for a game that can go on for hours, the paddle isn’t particularly ergonomic, with its cylindrical handle.

Coconut Paddles V2 challenges that. In its second iteration, the V2 gives the table tennis paddle a radical grip makeover that doesn’t just encourage you to hold it the right way, but even dramatically improves your strokes, and its non-cylindrical design means it’ll never slip out of your hand in the middle of a game. The unusual shape even allows you to (and this may be purely recreational) spin the paddle around your finger, like you would a revolver before putting it back into a holster… although a little theatrics only makes the game worth watching, no?

Designer: Coconut Paddles

coconut_paddle_v2_1

coconut_paddle_v2_2

coconut_paddle_v2_3

coconut_paddle_v2_4

coconut_paddle_v2_5

Trainerbot Ping Pong Robot: Eiichiro Maruobot

Posted on by

If you can’t afford a table tennis coach but a wall isn’t good enough for you, check out the Trainerbot. It’s a smart ping pong ball launcher that will give you the exact shot you want for as long as you want.

trainerbot_table_tennis_ping_pong_robot_1zoom in

Using its mobile app, you can program Trainerbot to fire very specific shots. It even divides your side of the table into nine zones, Baby Steps-style, so you can pick where you want it to shoot. You can also fine tune the trajectory and spin of its shot. You can also string multiple shots together and save them as a training drill. You’ll also be able to export the drills you created to help – or troll – other Trainerbot users.

Trainerbot also has preset drills with varying difficulty, a multiplayer mode and a cathartic smash mode for quick plug-and-play sessions. The robot can hold up to 30 ping pong balls, which it can all throw at you in 15 seconds at its fastest setting. It doesn’t come with a Ballboybot though.

trainerbot_table_tennis_ping_pong_robot_4zoom in

Pledge at least $329 (USD) on Kickstarter to receive a Trainerbot as a reward. The Trainerbot Pro variant comes with a stand so you can position it from a more realistic distance and height.

[via Gadgetify]

Interactive Table Tennis Trainer Will Be a Smash Hit

Posted on by

We’ve seen projection mapping applied to pool tables for decorative or instructional purposes. This one’s a sleek version for table tennis. Made by Thomas Mayer for his thesis in Interaction Design, the Table Tennis Trainer will turn you into the Ivan Drago of ping pong.

interactive_table_tennis_trainer_by_thomas_mayer_1zoom in

Thomas used a pair of PlayStation Eye cameras and a projector to track the ball and turn the table into an interactive display. The system’s flashiest feature is that it displays a profile of the player, such as his best score, win-loss record and even relevant attributes. However, it requires an NFC reader on the table and a chip embedded in the player’s paddle to serve as his login credential and perhaps data storage.

interactive_table_tennis_trainer_by_thomas_mayer_2zoom in

My favorite feature is the training mode for lone players. For instance, it can ask you to hit certain spots on the table when serving. Finally, the Table Tennis Trainer has several visual effects that make two player games more fun.

I think it’s worth exploring for the training mini-games alone. It could also introduce fun modes to the game, such as having players score more points if they hit certain spots or they can spell or draw characters on the table. I hope augmented reality takes off so we can have smart interfaces like this everywhere.

[via Gizmodo]

Ping Pong Playing Robot Has Two Eyes, Three Arms and Lots of Mercy

Posted on by

Earlier this year I featured a homemade ping pong playing robot… or so I thought. It turns out that it was merely a hoax made by two animators. But this robot made by automation expert Omron is the real deal. Its humongous body and brain show how hard it is for robots to perform what would be a simple task for a human. On the other hand, its forgiving nature shows just how smart robots can get.

omron ping pong playing robot 620x355magnify

Engadget took the image above at the 2014 Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies or CEATEC, where U.S. journalists gave the robot an award for innovation. The robot has two vision sensors, one to track the ball and one to analyze the motion and position of the puny human that it’s up against. Omron told Engadget that “the robot’s strikes would be too fast if running at full capacity”, but the company deliberately programmed it so that it would hit the ball to a spot that would be easy for its opponent to return. This seemingly lame decision was actually one hell of a challenge for Omron.

Omron said that because the robot has to take into account how best to return the ball so that the player can continue the rally, the robot’s calculations and movement had to have “a 1/1000 of a second accuracy”, or else it would fail to return the ball. Here’s a much longer video of the robot at CEATEC by YouTuber ARMdevices.net:

Despite its lightning-fast reflexes, the robot does have a legitimate handicap. As shown in the videos, its unified arms are too short to reach across its entire half. The way it was positioned at CEATEC it wouldn’t be able to reach the middle of the table. Then there’s the fact that its immobile. Still, Omron is proud to have made a robot that can adapt to a changing environment, and a human-loving one at that.

[via Omron via Engadget]

The Trivet That’s Also a Ping Pong Net

Posted on by

ping pong trivet The Trivet Thats Also a Ping Pong Net
This trivet converts into a ping pong net. That makes no sense at all and all the sense in the world. Because why not? The CorkNet is made out of… cork, naturally. You can stack the two halves to make a level trivet to keep hot pots and pans off your counter. But while you’re waiting for your food to heat up, separate the parts and place them upright on your table to make a ping pong net. A round of table tennis while you wait? Bet you can’t do that with a macrame trivet your kid made in camp this summer (actually you probably sorta could…)
table tennis trivet The Trivet Thats Also a Ping Pong Net
Smartly the CorkNet has a spherical cutout to hold a ping pong ball when you’re not playing games. Any table or kitchen island can become a ping pong table. Combined the parts make a “net” that’s 31.5″ wide. Take it with you. For maximum kitchen playtime you should probably use frying pans for racquets but if you want to be boooooring you can use regular ones. Fun kitchen gadget.

The Trivet That’s Also a Ping Pong Net
Check out our Craziest Gadgets Shop for unique gifts!

This Robot Can Beat You at Table Tennis with Just One Hand

Posted on by

Back in 2011 we featured a couple of humanoid robots designed to play table tennis. Industrial mechanic Ulf Hoffman recently unveiled a similar robot that he and his friends have been working on for the past couple of years. He calls it the Ulf Hoffman Tischtennis Roboter (Ulf Hoffman Table Tennis Robot) or UHTTR-1 for short.

table tennis robot by ulf hoffman 620x343magnify

As you can see the robot’s arm is on a rail mounted at one of the ends of a ping pong table. It’s made of aluminum, making it light enough for its servos to rapidly ferry it across the length of the table. It may only have one arm, but the robot has two things we don’t have: a second pair of eyes. Four cameras mounted at the top corners of the room track the ball’s position and send that data to the UHTTR-1′s software.

table tennis robot by ulf hoffman 2 620x465magnify

Ulf hasn’t said much about the robot’s program, but as you can see it has a variety of settings that help define its play style, including speed and spin. It even seems to have difficulty levels. I’m a bit worried about that “Evolve” setting.

We didn’t see it put to the test in the video, but I think you can beat the robot with a well-placed drop shot. Then again when you’re dealing with a robot that can evolve, all bets are off. Grip your browser and head to Ulf’s blog for more on his robot.

[via Laughing Squid]

Stiga Introduces a $20,000 Ping Pong Table

Posted on by

stiga table tennis table Stiga Introduces a $20,000 Ping Pong Table
How much do you like table tennis? Enough to pay $20,000 for a table? Well then you’re in luck because Stiga has just launched the Showcourt Table. What kind of luxury features do you get for the price of a car? The tournament level table comes with a 30mm thick blue top for a smooth true bounce, three levels of under-lit LED lighting, a specially made net and post, and stunning good looks. Take the table out of the basement and show it off! You probably don’t want to play beer pong on it, just saying. Or maybe you do.

Stiga Introduces a $20,000 Ping Pong Table

German robot arm learns ping-pong as it plays humans, might rival its masters

Posted on by

Germans robot arm learns pingpong as it plays, might rival its human masters

We like to tell ourselves that learning by doing is the best strategy for improving our skills, but we seldom apply that philosophy to our robots; with certain exceptions, they're just supposed to know what to do from the start. Researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt disagree and have developed algorithms proving that robot arms just need practice, practice, practice to learn complex activities. After some literal hand-holding with a human to understand the basics of a ping-pong swing, a TUD robot can gradually abstract those motions and return the ball in situations beyond the initial example. The technique is effective enough that the test arm took a mere hour of practice to successfully bounce back 88 percent of shots and compete with a human. That's certainly better than most of us fared after our first game. If all goes well, the science could lead to robots of all kinds that need only a small foundation of code to accomplish a lot. Just hope that the inevitable struggle between humans and robots isn't settled with a ping-pong match... it might end badly.

Filed under: ,

German robot arm learns ping-pong as it plays humans, might rival its masters originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Oct 2012 07:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink New Scientist  |  sourceUniversity of Texas (PDF)  | Email this | Comments