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

Reader Comments

Damn sexy! All hail the robot overlords!

Posted at 1:32 pm on Feb 10th, 2009 by Dan P

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

Posted at 1:44 pm on Feb 10th, 2009 by cyrozap

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

Posted at 2:17 pm on Feb 10th, 2009 by hum4n

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 ;)

Posted at 2:18 pm on Feb 10th, 2009 by marks256

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

Posted at 2:37 pm on Feb 10th, 2009 by Doug

lame

Posted at 6:37 pm on Feb 10th, 2009 by stampy

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!

Posted at 9:54 pm on Feb 10th, 2009 by NotInvolved

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

Posted at 8:43 am on Feb 11th, 2009 by Jerry

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!” ;)

Posted at 9:01 am on Feb 11th, 2009 by Vern Graner

“Nobody said the balls had enough -distance- to slow down to their term. velocity;”

having seen the new video, clearly you are mistaken

Posted at 9:40 am on Feb 11th, 2009 by Doug

i…uh…wow…

that thing is awesome =)

Posted at 1:09 pm on Feb 11th, 2009 by crobicha

The ponginator

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