TWO MORE GAME-PLAYING 'BOTS

摘要

Recent U.S. Naval Academy graduates Michael London, Patrick Livesay and George Yacus ll's robotic pool table uses a webcam that sends an image of the table to a vision program they wrote. After a person inputs the locations of the pockets and of the robot, the system picks out the cue ball, does the required trigonometry, and sends the angles of approach to a microcontroller. Powered by a DC motor and drive chain, the cue rolls into position, and a pneumatic actuator shoots the cue ball.