The ponginator

posted Feb 10th 2009 12:56pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: robots hacks

All bow your heads in reverence to the Ponginator. This bad boy is a performance robot, mounted to the end of a 3 story tall crane. He makes all kinds of noises, flashes all kinds of lights, and shoots ping pong balls at 170 miles an hour. This thing looks like it would be so much fun to play with. listen to it as he’s talking and you’ll pick out all kinds of Sci Fi sound effects, from Portal sounds to Star Trek sounds. Check out the second video on the site to actually see the Ponginator shooting.

Comments [11]

tagged: parallax, ping pong ball, robot

11 Responses to The ponginator

Dan P says:

February 10, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Damn sexy! All hail the robot overlords!

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cyrozap says:

February 10, 2009 at 1:44 pm

love the portal sounds! funny how they are from the turrets (not Tourette’s) in portal.

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hum4n says:

February 10, 2009 at 2:17 pm

i wonder what the spinning silver thing was in the background a lil more than halfway through it

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marks256 says:

February 10, 2009 at 2:18 pm

That is SO Pink Floyd at the beginning! It’s part of the intro from “Welcome to the Machine.” Good song :)

This robot is pretty awesome. I’d love to play with it ;)

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Doug says:

February 10, 2009 at 2:37 pm

The terminal velocity of a ping pong ball is only around 20 mph, so they would slow down real fast.

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stampy says:

February 10, 2009 at 6:37 pm

lame

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NotInvolved says:

February 10, 2009 at 9:54 pm

I saw this in person at the MakerFaire in Austin. It is simply FUN!

The adult spectators loved it and admired the subtleties, complexity and creativity that went into it. The kids totally loved it and that is truly the most important of all.

Quote: “The terminal velocity of a ping pong ball is only around 20 mph, so they would slow down real fast.” Dude, they were going *real-fast*! Nobody said the balls had enough -distance- to slow down to their term. velocity; They got embedded in the ceiling on a few shots!

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Jerry says:

February 11, 2009 at 8:43 am

Hey wait. The *)!& video didn’t show the thing firing a pin pong ball! What a ripoff.

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Vern Graner says:

February 11, 2009 at 9:01 am

Jerry said “Hey wait. The *)!& video didn’t show the thing firing a pin pong ball! What a ripoff.”

A full firing sequence is shown here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yarncar/3017194161/

Vern Graner
a.k.a. “That crazy Ponginator dude!” ;)

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