By now, you should have some amazing projects on your shelf, including projects that can walk, talk, and draw. Now, let's build a robot that can play air hockey.
In this chapter, you'll learn the following:
- How to build an air hockey robot paddle using three-dimensional printing concepts of gears and pulleys
- How to use Raspberry Pi and Arduino with the stepper motor drivers to control stepper motors
- How to connect a USB webcam and OpenCV to track the color and movement
- How to tie all this together for an unbeatable air hockey opponent
Constructing the hardware and connecting it to the table is a significant challenge. Fortunately, there is an excellent website that explains how to construct the entire hardware system using three-dimensional printed parts at http://jjrobots.com/air-hockey-robot-a-3d-printer-hack/. This website even provides you with the opportunity to purchase the three-dimensional printed parts. Follow the detailed instructions to build the hardware. Here is a picture of the hardware that is connected to a small air hockey table that was purchased at a local toy store:
In the documented example, the controller is a laptop that is connected to a PlayStation 3 (PS3) Eye camera. For this project, you'll replace the laptop and PS3 camera with Raspberry Pi and a webcam. And instead of having Arduino calculate the paddle position, you'll be using Raspberry Pi. To understand how to do this, you'll first need to understand how to control stepper motors with Arduino and stepper motor drivers.