Hackers can do some nasty things, but their skills can also be used for good clean fun, something a Spanish hacker recently demonstrated when he made a smart air hockey table for his daughter.
Jose Julio constructed the robot from 3D printer parts and a PlayStation 3 camera, PCMag.com reported.
"My daughter loves the air hockey game and I love robotics so one day an idea [was] born in my mind. Can I construct?" Julio wrote in a translated blog post.
"It seemed very complicated and with many unresolved questions (puck detection??, robot speed??)," he said. "But that is also part of the fun."
Using two PC fans to provide the cushions of air needed for the game, Julio built his own air hockey table and then made his own brackets, puck and paddle from the family's RepRap 3D printer, according to PCMag.
He took the machine apart, using drivers, belts, bearings and more to construct the robot.
"After several design iterations of the pieces, and some material changes to minimize the weight and inertia (and thus increase the accelerations of the robot) I got a fairly operational design," Julio said.
He developed a "vision system" for the robot with the PlayStation 3 EYE camera, allowing it to "see" a puck and move to block it.
"Now the robot could easily beat a child. An adult with some experience can still [defeat] the robot, but I am sure that with some more small improvements it is going to be really hard to beat," Julio wrote in his blog.
The air hockey-playing robot isn't Julie's first. He also designed and built a robot entirely printed from a 3-D printer last fall, according to a blog post.
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