Youtuber Shane Wighton has built a robotic pool cue with a camera and a mechanical arm that makes it foolproof: watch the video
Going straight to the hole is no longer a problem. At least for Shane Wighton. The American youtuber – creator of the 2.5 million followers channel Stuff Made Here – has designed and built a 100% foolproof robotic pool cue. While this may sound like ‘child’s play’, it is actually quite a complex system. Shane used two basic components: a video camera mounted on the table and a system of 6 mechanical arms installed on the tip of a common pool cue. The camera analyses the position of the balls and, thanks to a projector, suggests to the player the best trajectory and angle from which to hit the cue. At this point, the system of mechanical arms – controlled by a Stewart platform – calibrates the power of the shot and allows the ball to be hit with the right accuracy every time. The result is spectacular: the robotic cue has 100% infallibility.
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The “robotic” billiard cue is infallible
Obviously, the construction and testing of the robotic cue has been immortalised in a video that has received more than 8 million views on YouTube. The clip shows Shane testing the precision of his creation by hitting the cue from every possible angle imaginable. The end result is always the same: whether it’s a bank shot or a direct hit, there’s no ball that doesn’t go in the hole. Of course, Shane’s cue will never be recognised on a sporting level and will never be able to participate in any competition. However, the result is stunning and demonstrates (once again) the enormous potential of precision robotics. Achieving this performance was no easy task. Wighton had to fine-tune every component to the millimetre, and performed many, many tests to achieve 100% infallibility. All in all, it took almost 200 hours of work to build the infallible robotic pool cue. Perhaps if Shane had trained “normally“, he would have achieved infallibility at the same time!
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