Ping pong training robot

[montagdude]

Here are some renders of my latest project. It uses two brushless motors to spin RC car wheels. The balls travel down a chute and through the wheels. Relative speed of the wheels controls power and spin. It also has a standard servo for oscillation, a micro servo to release the ball, and another micro servo to rotate the barrier in the hopper to allow the next row of balls to travel down the chute. It is controlled by an Arduino, with a number of potentiometers and switches to change settings. It's currently mostly built and programmed; all is working except I need to finish construction of the hopper. Parts are cut by hand out of plywood and some balsa. I'll post a video when it's all done. The whole thing will be mounted on a tripod at the end of the ping pong table, which will give me an easy way to adjust the height and trajectory.

[montagdude]

I might simplify the hopper design. I happened to find a funnel that is just the right size to let a ping pong ball through, which I could build a small bowl around. Based on some tests, it seems like all that is needed to keep it from getting jammed is to have a servo stirring the balls near the opening continuously.

[chrisb]

Very cool project!

[montagdude]

Thanks, Chris. I've had a lot of fun working on it so far. By the way, the new (to me anyway) Render workbench is very nice and convenient.

Here are a couple pictures of the simplified hopper design. It will attach to the chute with some magnets for ease of removal. The servo in the hopper will rotate back and forth continuously to keep the balls from jamming. Now to finish building it.

[chrisb]

Would like to see it finished. Perhaps even with a movie in action.

[montagdude]

Would like to see it finished. Perhaps even with a movie in action.

I'll definitely make a detailed video when it's all done. In the meantime, here is a test I did a couple weeks ago after I finished the launcher and chute. This was before the base and wiring were done, so I used an R/C transmitter to run the motors:

phpBB [video]

A picture of the base with wiring done is attached, and here is a link to the Arduino code:
https://github.com/montagdude/PingBot_firmware

If all goes well with the hopper construction, I'll have it done in a week or two. The final video will probably be done another week after that.

[chrisb]

Top project!

[Kunda1]

So cool!

[howetuft]

Amazing! What rendering engine did you select for your renderings?

[montagdude]

Amazing! What rendering engine did you select for your renderings?

Thanks! I used povray for rendering. It was quite easy to just set the face color of the objects, add them to the project in the Render workbench, and press go.