Hacking a ping pong table | Hacker News Reader

Hacking a ping pong table

sidigital.co

94 pointsm4tthumphrey27 comments

Tangent:

Given the sidigital is a digital marketing solution company. These kind of projects is ingenius content marketing for themselves.

It generates good buzz for:

1. their potential customers (look how innovative we are)

2. their potential hires (you will have heaps of fun working here)

3. gives existing employees something to brag about (look how cool my company is)

As a side note, I remember there are a startup in SF that mapped every engineer's desk and have nerf guns (hooked up to their continuous integration service) that shoot at engineer whenever someone breaks the build; If I were the CEO, I would only approve these kind of projects if I get some marketing benefits out of it

Has anyone here been with companies with similar side projects, what are your thoughts on ROI?

I run a small agency(currently 6) and we run monthly hack days to build something cool. The last was a dashboard that links to an ibeacon once we enter the room it says hello and says goodbye when we leave. Completely pointless but it was interesting to build and had some great side effects.

We received 6 applications for jobs that weren't advertised (5/6 were very good). But also we got a great amount of feedback from our existing clients interested in using it for their own companies!

Our next project is a drinks robot built into a globe!

As a CEO you need to care for more than the bottom line.

Agreed, none of our (Si digital) hack projects would have been possible without our MD's go ahead and foresight to see the value in these projects. More of what he made possible here http://sidigital.co/lab

Side note to your side note is here: https://github.com/codedance/Retaliation

This is amazing! I know a team who have something similar in their irc when you type //Armageddon world war 3 erupts

I hope they're keeping detailed statistics, like how often each player wins a point on their own serve, which opponents are the best/worst against each player, etc.

Yep, time for each game too, and which end they play best at for the superstitious amongst us. Tons of stats we'll probably never use, but just in case!

"and when it’s time to switch servers (every multiple of 5 points). […] Once one player reaches the final score of 21 with 2 points clear, the system automatically ends the game"

It amazes me how long it takes for rule changes to propagate throughout the world.

Table-tennis has been using 11-point games for over a decade, with serve rotation after every two points (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_tennis#Rule_changes), but I rarely meet recreational players who are aware of that, and that includes people who played it first after those rule changes were made.

We are definitely aware, but given our skill level games to 11 would end far too quickly. That's why we opted for the old 21 system. Maybe in a year when we can actually maintain good rallies we will upgrade to 11 :)

It's not a matter of skill, with games to 11 you can play 2 out of 3, which often turns out to be longer than games of 21. Personally I think games to 11 make it more exciting; it's really fun being down a game and then gaining hope when you win the next :)

You can play 2 out of 3 just fine with games to 21.

Why do basement and break room matches need to follow competitive rules designed for television?

Maybe that is because those rules are to make the game more fun to watch not to make it funner to play.

Ping-pong is a game for participants, not for TV.

Another version of this idea:

http://the-incredible-machine.com/pingpong-what-if-your-tabl...

Wow, everything looks so smooth and slick. Great job, guys.

It would be awesome if this could handle scoring for Doubles and then evaluate the best teams over time.

Very cool.

I made a web app that would show whether or not our table was currently in use based on the sound and frequency of ping-pong ball impacts. https://github.com/helious/rails-sound-spy

Nice. But score keeping in one's head, while challenging, is at least doable. Truly impossible: keeping track of serve/receive pairs and partner switches during casual doubles play. I've never seen four trained engineers get it right. :-)

Switching sides during a double is easy. As soon as the serving side is switched (every 5 points), the new serving side switches player positions. Everything else stays the same.

> Developers don’t have the best hand eye co-ordination

1. "hand-eye coordination"

2. Generalizations should at least be supported by references

3. Pretty awesome hack

1. Thanks, fixed!

2. Every developer in our office :P

This was pretty cool. Was anyone else upset that there wasn't a full clip of them playing and showing this in use?

This can be arranged, I'll suggest it tomorrow!

It would be nice to hook up a GoPro in the corner of the room and automatically record each matchup. Given that the system knows when games start and end and who's playing, you could even overlay a scoreboard and live stream or upload to YouTube.

C'mon! Project the score and win/lose effects directly on the table!

If you're gonna go graphic-y and fun, go big!

2500mAh gone in a week? What are they doing?!

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