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Engineering Students Build Robotic Foosball Players

Posted by Soulskill on from the taking-over-the-world-one-table-at-a-time dept.

Andre writes "As their final-year project, an eight-man team of fourth-year electrical and computer-engineering students at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, constructed a robot-controlled, motor-and-actuator foosball table capable of playing against human opponents in a two-on-two fashion; one mechanical player controls two defensive rods (goalies and full-backs) and the other controls two offensive rods (half-backs and forwards). They considered the computers 'medium-skilled' players in that they were very competitive against beginners and fairly competitive against intermediates."

3 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Not that easy, it would appear by Bearhouse · · Score: 2, Funny

    FTA: 'After a year of software development and testing, the team and faculty consultant Sebastion Fischmeister demoed their bionic foosball superstars in January 2009 at the university's Senior Design Symposium to a positive reception.'

    Guess Beckham et al. are safe for a while...

  2. What if? by conureman · · Score: 2, Funny

    I wonder how the "players" would do if they had their positions switched. Would the algorithms want re-writing?

    --
    The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
  3. Re:Medium Skill? by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 2, Funny

    And who could forget the famous "pawn rush" strategy that beat Deep Blue?