Playing ping-pong has always been a two-person experience—until now. Trainerbot is a new household robot that is almost guaranteed to be your toughest ping-pong opponent. Brothers Alex and Harrison Chen developed Trainerbot after years of playing ping-pong with each other. While away at college, Harrison developed the first Trainerbot prototype out of a garbage can so he could practice in secret while away from his brother. A dozen or so prototypes later, the newest version of Trainerbot is going up on Kickstarter today.
I've never played ping-pong in my life, so I was apprehensive of Trainerbot at the beginning. Using the companion mobile app, you can choose different drills to practice (including an intimidating one called "Crazy Mode"), create your own drills, and share them with friends to challenge their abilities. Rather than being isolating, Trainerbot can be as social as you make it thanks to the sharing abilities the app will have at launch. Of course, Trainerbot is clearly for a specific group of table-tennis-loving people (and at more than $300, those will be the only people to invest in one at first), but newbies like me might be intrigued after giving it a try for themselves. Check out Trainerbot and my first attempt at ping-pong in the video above.
Listing image by Trainerbot
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