Gizmodo
Four engineering students from Georgia Tech have built an Autonomous Foosball Table, quite possibly the key to my never-ending quest to replace the humans in my life with robots. The funny thing is, this thing isn't just a gimmick; it may soon become a decent foosball opponent. The table system cost about $500 to build, and combines a webcam, an 800MHz Pentium PC and servo-controlled paddles to move, twist, and kick. Here's how it works:
The computer runs a Java Media Framework app that tracks the ball as well as the human opponent via webcam. The PC then issues commands to a PIC microcontroller across a serial line, based on the information it's receiving. From there, the microcontroller tells the servos to either move or kick the ball. In addition, the table can predict the trajectory of the ball, lifting its midfielders in time to set up a clear shot.
Despite how awesome it looks to the layman, the project wasn't perfect according to the team. For one, they'd like to improve the moving and kicking speeds, a task which would simply require larger (and more expensive) gears. Also, they would ideally have a webcam capturing video at 60fps instead of the current 30fps. These improvements, combined with a better AI engine, could pump the table up to beating a serious player, or at least most drunk and/or stoned college kids.
I would love to try this table out, and maybe I will. But until those improvements are made, I guess I'll have to settle for actual social interaction. [Autonomous Foosball Table via Hack a Day]
Comments
That's all types of awesome.
i could play a game of this without a million baby squirrels screaming their lungs out.
I hear Georgia Tech has a rather profound shortage of women.
lol @ WEAK_PIG
that was Funny... lol
Despite the obvious anti-social requirement, that's extremely impressive.
(Gets back to work on Autonomous Life System)
@DaveExile: We have a ratio of, last I checked... 32% females to 68% males... up 2 percent from last year... however, it seems even worse than that at times since some of those females don't really look like females... uuggghhh
But how does it shotgun a beer when it gets skunked?
Why are the computer players black? I smell RACISM!!!
for the lonely guy on your x-mas list
@DaveExile: Actually we're doing quite well at 30%. When you factor out the true anti-social guys (the ones that sit in their room and play WoW all the time, not guys who do cool stuff like this), it's not bad.
Finally, a foosball opponent I could actually beat.
Really very cool. I hope they get some decent funding and make some money with the idea. Nice work.
@dna: lol.
Oh man, this kid stinks at foosball. I would own him
@vicsells:
You should ring him up. I'm sure he's looking for human contact by now.
germans did like 4 years ago: [translate.google.com]
INCREDIBLE! defenetly a market niche ;-)
Pretty cool, but can it shoot a rollover? Even at 60fps, it won't be able to stop a decent player. You'd need something more like 200fps, with a randomized moving defensive line.
lame, both of them play like sissies...
Yeah, that was just pitiful.
@Azureice55: Yes, but by the time you filter out the anti-social women the ratio goes right back down. BTW, I got out in '97, and they swore we were at 30% back then too.
If the computer didn't suck at fooseball, it might actually be worthwhile. It would be cool if it could stop any shots that weren't taken directly at it.
As someone who playes fooseball almost every day at work, i say FAIL.
I might just fly out to check this thing out... :-) AWESOME!!!
It's like playing mentally undeveloped children... I guess that makes it perfect for a dorm room...
@Azureice55: Even if we are supposedly at 30% and you then filter our the antisocial guys, one thing still remains: "the girls at Tech are like the parking spaces-- they're all either taken or handicapped."
@RockLobsterNet: that was so bad and funny.
I think this is rather neat thing to do. Impressive for what they had.
@Captain Angry: Fail? Is that what your school said to you to allow you to play fooseball everyday? Regardless of how successful you could potentially be in your life, if you're playing fooseball that often, you may need to re-evaluate your life, or at least find something other that fooseball to play to break up the monotony.
As for the robot fooseball player, I must say that it's not a bad idea if only the speed, AI, and reaction time of the movements can be improved upon to challenge at least the casual player, if not a professional player such as Captain Angry here. This would be cool if applied to other two player table games, both for practice and for entertainment. I could see this being fun for a billards table, and could potentially be easier and more successful to apply since speed and response time is not an issue and the computer would have time to analyze the shots. Of course, the AI would have to be programmed to not be so perfect that the player would never have a chance. Hurray for forward, if not, different thinking.
@dna:
would you prefer them to be rednecks?
=P
Eh, there's one of those up here at the University of Illinois. Its in one of those rooms where people pretend they're doing serious science stuff, when in reality they're just thinking up incredibly involved ways to be lazier.
this has probably been over done as a senior project, but here's one with terrific AI:
[cese.msoe.edu]
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