Beer pong is a fun enough game for those of a certain age, but one thing that it lacks is a way of cranking up the difficulty setting independent of the amount of beer one has consumed. At least, that was the idea [Ty] had when he came up with this automated beer pong table which allows the players to increase the challenge of this game by sliding the cups around the top of the table.
The build uses a belt-driven platform under a clear cover with a set of magnets attached. Each of the cups on the table has a corresponding magnet, which allows them to slide fairly easily back and forth on the table. The contraption is controlled by an Arudino Nano with a small screen and dial that allows the players to select a difficulty level from 1 to 10. The difficulty levels increase the speed that the cups oscillate on the table, which certainly adds another layer of complexity to this already challenging game.
While we hope to eventually see a beer pong table that can automatically arrange the cups as the game is played, we do appreciate the effort to make an already difficult game even more difficult. Of course, if you have problems with the difficulty level you might want to pick up a PongMate CyberCannon Mark III to help with those clutch beer pong shots.
