Interactive ping-pong table / virtual aquarium

Computers & Mobile Craft & Design Fun & Games
Interactive ping-pong table / virtual aquarium
pingpongplus.jpg

Ah, the gay (19)90s: before Y2K, 9/11, Gitmo, CDOs, and all kinds of other depressing modern acronyms. Venture capital fell from the sky like manna, and everyone was getting rich on the Internet, even though nobody knew exactly how. Enter, into that milieu, the following brilliant idea, courtesy of the wunderkinder at MIT’s then-ascendant Media Lab: Ping-pong tables ought to contain schools of virtual fish that react to the impact of the ball. The rave toy to end all rave toys!

Pre-coffee sarcasm aside, this really is pretty cool. PingPongPlus is the work of Craig Wisneski, Julian Orbanes, Ben Chun and Professor Hiroshi Ishii. The “fish” mode is only one of several possible interactions, and they all include sound effects. Check out the vid:

6 thoughts on “Interactive ping-pong table / virtual aquarium

  1. riceg.myopenid.com says:

    This would be great for beer pong!

  2. croatia says:

    This is really impressive !

  3. dick_at_gra.in says:

    You have no idea how hard this was to recreate, in a week, a decade after it was made. We had nothing to work from, and had to install it at the Victoria and Albert in London. Know how much I saw of London? The sidewalk between the museum and my hotel room.

    Big credit to Alonso.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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