Inspiration
Salmon MHacks shirts + computer vision + ping pong balls = Pong Turret.
What it does
The turret homes and launches ping pong balls at a specifically trained color.
How I built it
I used some PVC, some wooden dowel, a stepper motor, a DC motor, 2 motor drivers, a CMULabs Pixy Cam, and lots of hot glue. I first built the mechanics, then tested and programmed the camera code to track the trained color. When that worked I got the motors to run and combined separate code into a functioning ping pong launcher.
Challenges I ran into
The mechanics were one of the hardest problems to solve. The next hardest problem was calibrating the camera with the hardware.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I'm surprised that I got it to work! It's pretty accurate.
What I learned
The Raspberry Pi is much nicer to use for hardware GPIO than I previously thought. I learned a bit of python and some hardware as well.
What's next for Pong Turret
Nothing, really. I enjoyed the hack and I hope everyone else did as well.
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