Students in their third semester are traditionally given a challenging task before Christmas that is technically demanding and also has a craft and design component. The students develop machines that function automatically at the touch of a button and have to survive in a competition.

From forehand to topspin

This year, everything revolves around an interactive table tennis training system. The machine is supposed to throw balls onto the table tennis table in the classic stroke techniques such as forehand, backhand and topspin - and only put a new ball into play in AI mode if the opponent has played the ball out of bounds.

Between the task in December and the result in January, there are many thoughts, plans and questions: Where is the best place to position the machine? How do we store the table tennis balls in the machine? How does the module shoot the balls to the right and left - and not over the table tennis table? How does the system understand when a ball is returned and when it is not?

The teams come up with very different solutions, which are first tested with Lego and cardboard and later with 3D printing and programming via software.

The competition

The machines will then be shown in full operation on 24 January from 3 pm. The team whose system ejects the balls in the most stable manner will win, but criteria such as innovation, design and technical efficiency will also score points. The jury is made up of lecturers from the Industrial Design degree programme.