Engineering and Table Tennis at GTTTA
We're ramblin' wrecks from Georgia Tech, and the majority of us are engineers. This page is dedicated to the engineering-related work our members have done on the topic of table tennis.
If you have the opportunity to do a table tennis-related project, let us know about it and we'll post your project on this page!
Mechanical Pitching Machine: The Working Model!
Aaron Scott - June 2008
This homemade "ping pong robot" contraption was built partly for fun, partly in hopes of it actually being useful, but mostly to see if it could be done. This machine is dedicated to the Spring 2008 table tennis team who reached a level of success previously unattained by Georgia Tech. Be sure to press the "watch in high quality" button!
YouTube Video
The Gravity-Powered Pitching Machine Website
ME 6105 Modeling and Simulation Project: Mechanical Pitching Machine
Aaron Scott - April 2008
The system we (Ben Beck, Jay Johnson, Ryder Winck and I) modeled was a "Gravity-Powered Table Tennis Ball Pitching Machine" or homemade "ping pong robot" that I designed with the intent to eventually build it. We modeled it in Dymola and performed optimization and sensitivity analysis under uncertainty using Model Center. See the project webpage for more information. We blew everyone away when we unveiled and demonstrated a working model for the final presentation!
Simulation YouTube Video
Project Webpage
GTTTA at E-week Engineering Fair
Aaron Scott - February 21, 2008
Many organizations set up stations with food and games for this Engineer's Week fair, hosted by Tau Beta Pi. To see what went down, see the E-week recap video and Technique article. We had a contest for highest score on the GTTT Flash Game. The top score was 9. Not bad for first try! Much fun and great advertisement for GTTTA. I even got in the Technique!
Recap YouTube Video
Technique Article
The GT Table Tennis Flash Game
Aaron Scott - January 2008
Simulation/Game based on the actual physics of the game. Put spin on the ball, and the ball will fly and bounce as you would expect in real life. Programmers and Math majors will appreciate this game, especially in terms of the computer opponent.
Game Download and Instructions Page
Robotic Table Tennis Using Monocular Vision
Aaron Scott - December 2007
ME6505 Machine Vision Project on the use of a single video camera to obtain 3D data of ball position and an algorithm to predict the time and location of the ball as it passes the plane of the camera. Data was acquired and analyzed for 14 trials with moderate to high spin.
Aaron_Scott_ME6506.doc (2 MB)