Playing racquet-based games like tennis, ping pong, and badminton is more than just about being able to rally or pull off a smash, it is also about being accurate where you know where your ball will land. This means that you can precisely target areas of the court/table to force your opponent to run and tire themselves out, or in areas where you know they won’t be able to reach in time.
Now for those of you who are avid ping pong players, you might be interested in checking out this interactive ping pong table created by Thomas Mayer, a carpenter and designer based in Germany. The table will see the use of a pair of PlayStation Eye cameras to track movement and a HD projector to project on the table where the ball lands.
Not only will it be able to track where the ball lands, which in itself is pretty nifty, but it will also be able to gather stats on the player like speed, saves, stability, as well as their wins and losses, the kind of information that you might be interested in if you are looking to improve yourself as a ping pong player.
According to Mayer, he says that the project was challenging and that there were many prototypes that he had to go through before landing on this one. “It was challenging to design a functional interface which is projectable on a ping pong table taking in consideration the players’ ergonomics. Project resolution, layout of the interface and arrangement of buttons were the biggest problems that I had to test in many prototypes.”
Unfortunately it does not look like Mayer plans to sell his invention or turn it into a commercial product, but you can check out the table in action and additional photos on his website.
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