A hacker has taken the time to build an awesome air hockey robot from a PlayStation 3 camera and a 3D printer. The hacker, who goes by the name of Jose Julio, says that so far, those who chose to go up against the air hockey robot have usually lost.
The robot has been programmed to move across the table as well as to move back and forth to keep the puck from entering the goal. From what you can see in the video (watch below), the robot is a smart machine. Julio's creative project also shows how useful the PlayStation 3's camera is outside of gaming. In most circumstances, a developer would have probably chosen to go with the Kinect camera instead, because it provides more options technologically. However, Julio saw potential in the PlayStation 3 camera and decide to use it to make this robot air hockey player.
Julio wrote on his blog that his daughter loves to play air hockey and wanted someone to play with all the time. To help her gain a new playmate, Julio constructed the robot air hockey table. He used certain parts of a 3D printer, along with the PlayStation 3 camera and then connected everything to a PC.
The PlayStation 3 camera allows the robot to predict where the puck will end up, so that explains why it is so difficult for mere humans to beat the machine. Furthermore, the robot is capable of detecting a puck by its color, and can hit back at opponents at extreme speeds.
If this is truly for his daughter, then Julio might need to consider lessening the difficulty level, so that she can enjoy a fun game of air hockey with her new robot best friend.
In its current form, the robot is definitely good enough to defeat a child as well as many adults who have almost no experience playing air hockey. However, Julio states that people with extensive experience can beat the robot, which means it hasn’t yet reached the point of being undefeatable.
Julio also claims that, with some more improvements, the air hockey robot should get better at what it does best. In other words, humans hoping to defeat this thing in the future will have an extremely difficult time doing so.
