RSSDeep Green, the pool-playing robot from the Robotics & Computer Vision lab at Queen's University has been making the rounds on other websites recently. Its robot arm uses a huge gantry to move anywhere over the table, and then a special cue stick tool to hit the ball.
It's hugely impressive, but the size and complexity of the hardware puts it out of reach for most Makers [please -- someone prove me wrong!]. So, that's why I was attracted to the second half of the video: The students developed an equally impressive augmented reality mode that works without the robot. By using a projector and a camera located above the table, it recognizes the position of balls. As the player moves their pool cue, the system projects the predicted trajectory of the balls right on the table. If you can hit the ball consistently, this could be a great help in visualizing & setting up complicated shots!
See also: Roomba Pool
via waxy
I'm pretty sure this is the billiard program they are using http://www.nongnu.org/billiards/
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http://www.instructables.com/id/Automated-Pool-Table/
My college buds and I built a robotic table from scratch, twas quite the challenge. Understanding vision software and systems engineering is key, and an experienced maker could most likely build one themselves.
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Reminds me of the Quantum Leap episode where Sam leaped into a pool player.
http://www.quantumleap-alsplace.com/episodeguide/poolhallblues.htm
Sam couldn't play pool, so Al used his hand link to place a red laser dot on the ball, and all Sam had to do was hit the dot with the proper stroke.
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Here's a lesser version done last year as a student project:
http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~hamblen/489X/F08PROJ/Digitally_Assisted_Billards/Digitally_Assisted_Billards/Welcome.html
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It would be real cool if the pool playing ability was incorporated to a humanoid robot like i.e. asimo. I believe that time approaches very fast.
Recently I've been seeing a lot of different kinds of robots like this one in the news. Just in the last few weeks, I was amazed to watch a super fast and precise robot hand, ball juggling robot, self assembling robot etc... You can also see more of these different robots at http://www.roboticmagazine.com/various.php
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