Members from the London Hackerspace recently got a little on-air time with a ping pong ball launcher. They were invited to build something for the Click show on BBC. The launcher that they built responds to hash tags on Twitter by barraging the audience with balls.
The hardware was built in two parts. The first is a dispenser that responds to incoming Tweets by releasing one ball onto a set of staging ramps. The other portion is the launcher itself. Building it like this makes it a rapid fire device, as the spinning wheels of the launcher make quick work of several dozen balls just waiting to be let loose. Check out some footage from the show after the jump.
We like this one just as much as that remote controlled launcher. We’re glad to have seen these both because we happen to have a surplus of the balls lying around since we built that clock and we’re not about to undertake some of the more dangerous ping pong based projects we’ve seen.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPG-ji3zt7A&w=470]
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They should have fed in from straight up so they could pan back and forth to spread out the ping pong ball love.
yeah we should have… but this turned out to be funnier as it womped one guy in the face repeatedly
Right? It really only shot the one guy. Poor fucker.
Would be super cool if they printed the Tweet on the balls before launching.
Maybe a print head that uses UV curable ink for a fast set and then on its way down the launch chute.