Mar 09
The KUKA Robot Group is already hyping its upcoming match next week
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Mar 08
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.
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.
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]
Sep 12
They say that all work and no play makes Jack (or Jane, in this politically correct world that we live in these days) a dull boy/girl, but the kind of “play” that kids seem to want to be involved in these days tend to feature some sort of electronic component or another, such as a smartphone, tablet, or portable game console. The number of kids that live a sedentary lifestyle seem to have swelled a whole lot more as the country grows to be even more prosperous. Well, the $149.95 Kitchen Table Tennis might help them change their mind, as it would be a suitable purchase for anyone living in a cramped apartment to make best use of the space within.
The Kitchen Table Tennis would enable you to set up a game of table tennis in double quick time on your kitchen table or island. The table itself is capable of unfolding itself to the measurements of 84″ x 42″ x 1/4″, which can then be set onto any flat surface. The set will come with a 4″ high net alongside posts that clip to the board at either end so that your precious dining table’s finish will not be marred in any way, and yet helping ensure that the net remains taut during play. The table itself can reverses to reveal separate chess/checkers and backgammon boards for that added variety, now how about that for versatility?
[ Kitchen Table Tennis makes the best use of your home’s limited space copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Oct 28
German robot arm learns ping-pong as it plays humans, might rival its masters
Posted in: Today's Chili 
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.
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.
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