Thesis Project Aiming To Revolutionise Ping Pong

Delivering real time data visualisations for both trainers and players of ping pong, Thomas Mayer's innovative training equipment may well go far beyond his University thesis project. A tracker of ping pong balls in real time to capture and re-imagine play and data for the purpose of improving your talent, it really is surprising that such an invention has been realised not in Silicone Valley (for example).

Via a mapped interface and the displaying of game obstacles on a ping pong table surface, Mayer soon figured during his project's progression that he can totally change game play. With data collected for all players involved during a match, personal high scores and facts to review the performances and developments could be logged and analysed. With separate and minimalistic dashboards for each of the players, Mayer's overall display is very simple but extremely complex behind the scenes.

As Mayer explained, "...it was challenging to design a functional interface which is projectable on a ping pong table taking in consideration the players' ergonomics. Project resolution, layout of the interface and arrangement of buttons were the biggest problems that I had to test in many prototypes."