Any robotics experts here?
 

How the hell does the machine "see" the infinite angles needed to do this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCrhirfIrAQ

See that turning thing? Thats how.

Oh yeah, Mustang and f**k Portland.

Thank you for being such a little ray of sunshine...

edge detection & ray tracing are likely bets; a lot of solving of systems of diff. eqn.s is also likely

This was one of the related videos- awesome

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Niels is a good shooter, indeed. The closest I've heard of anybody coming close to Mosconi's 526 was a run made by John "Mr. 400" Schmidt. It's too bad that many don't play 14-1 (STRAIGHT POOL) these days...it is quite possibly the purest form of the game with every shot being called...

(edit) I once watched my "honorary nephew" Matt make a practice run of 126...on a 9' Brunswick...4 7/8" pockets. Don't think he's broken 120 since.

The "Derby City Classic" is quite a show from what I've read of it. Multiple tournaments in about every pool game there is. Top players from all over the planet attending. Action going on 24/7....

Thanks for posting this. I'm pretty sure many who post here don't have a clue what pool excellence is. This is a good illustration of same. Niels has whitey on a string in this video...

I'm calling BS.

If it really is a robot then that's impressive but I suspect someone is playing billiards by remote control.

Seems like a fairly easy application to me. Its just calculating the necessary angle. The power of the hits is not impressive or accurate.

It is more of a programming problem than a robotics (mechanical/electrical) problem...

Hardware obviously has some color sensitivity. Does quick scan, IDs the cue and target ball. The "stick" knows exactly where it is on X/Y/Z grid/plane, by extrapolating size it gets distance to each ball once it finds the cue and the target ball, and then figures the best pocket, angle of attack, force needed (determined by a lot of pre-calibrating and measuring ft/lbs required to move ball at X speed and overcome a known amount of resistance), etc. Just math and physics at that point. Probably has a "real" computer behind it as opposed to a dedicated board of some type.

Now if it were doing complex multi bank shots, curving with english, etc. *that* would be a trick to code.

it's not really fair isn't it, the robot isn't playing pool, it's like a human hitting the balls with his hand.
no cue is used, hence, it's not playing pool or billiards

And it looks like it only has one kind of hit, no hard/medium/soft. it only knows one thing.

Exactly...and it has no sense of accomplishment or sorrow when it misses. Still, an impressive display of robotics design and computer programming.

More impressive is the video of Niels making that 130 ball run. Yes, there are people who play better than a machine. I'm definitely not one of them. I do stupid stuff like make a difficult shot, and while mentally patting myself on the back for it, I'll dog the next shot, one that should be an easy one. Niels has a remarkable ability to control the cue ball. The machine didn't seem able to do that.

dunno if the robot design is such a big deal on this one.. there's nothing in it that is ground breaking in this day and age, they had those capabilities 20 years ago in factories.

programming, perhaps, it depends on how good that thing really analyzes, and you can't tell that from just one video..

Hell, I was impressed. Maybe too easily. My excuse is that I recall when the transistor was big tech news...

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That explains quite a bit...thanks. Still amazes this guy who was born during WWII.

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last bit, against the human is the best part

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_NNJjrD6do

No robots here.

i was hoping this was about the dance move/style..damn!