I love playing ping pong but don't have
enough friends thankfully someone has
made a robot to play ping pong with me
it's called trainer bot it's kind of
like a pitching machine it's got some
motors in here to fire ping pong balls
at you what makes it special that it can
aim the ping pong balls and even better
it can apply spin so trainer bot
attaches the one to the table plug it in
says hello you can put about 30 balls up
here I'm going to stand over here it
will fire ping pong balls at me and then
I get to clean them up one of the most
important parts of ping pong is the spin
of the ball
there's backspin topspin sideways spins
and those affect how the ball flies
through the air
how where the ball goes when it hits the
table and most difficult for me is where
the ball goes after it hits the paddle
and to play ping pong well you have to
be able to create these spins but you
also have to know how to counteract
those spins when they're coming at you
I'm gonna try some back spins I could
ask a buddy to send me some back spins
but the nice thing about trader bot is
that it's going to theoretically hit the
same sector of the table each time so
now if I go down with my ping pong
paddle you see both these back spins I
just go right into the table so I have
to lift this shot up somehow I'll do a
terrible job I'm just getting murdered
by this backspace and what am I supposed
to there we go I got one there we go see
it getting better so yeah if I I feel
like I'm doing something wrong with my
body but I feel like that angle of the
paddle that was very important in that
motion very important and getting 20 I
mean asking your buddy to hit you 20
identical shots so you can get better
it's get a you know break friendships so
like every robot it's it's controlled
with an app so the trainer bot app has a
lot of stuff in it but first you got to
connect connects over Bluetooth so the
first thing you see is a bunch of custom
drill so this is like basically ping
pong the video game you get a sequence
of shots and you got to deal with all of
them you can even like team up with
somebody and you can also create your
own spin you choose which sector of the
table you want it to hit you choose
which spin you want and then you can
even find tune each of the specific
motors in trader bot to get the exact
shot you want and then you just hit
start you get ping-pong balls fired at
you okay so it's the ball is spinning
like this and it just goes crazy so I
put my ping pong paddle
okay so I need to counteract this
somehow oh I need to do it beforehand
how wasn't that bad maybe I'm maybe I
don't need trainer but maybe I'm good
enough of it this is still an early
prototype and this is definitely gonna
get better but what I've already learned
today is how to deal with a backspin how
to deal with a sideways spin how to do a
forehand lots of things that I played a
lot of ping pong games and got
marginally better at I feel like just a
little bit of time with this has
actually made me a better ping pong
player this is coming to Kickstarter on
May 16th and the early bird price for
like the first backers is about $330
which is a lot of money for a robot that
only plays ping pong and it does not
pick up the balls after it fires the
math but it's a lot cheaper than maybe
hiring a coach or taking lessons and you
know you don't have to go out and meet
anybody it's perfect if you don't like
people but love ping pong and then if
fires ping pong balls at you uh-oh maybe
I should have put it in there it'll come
out it'll be fine
this one second
a pair of people ball and the people at
all I don't think that was such a
problem
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