Air Hockey Solitaire | Hackaday

Although air hockey is great fun, it’s no fun if you can’t find someone to play against. If not, you build a mini table with a robot defender. [Vaib], [Nathan]and [Navish] butter show how. Below is a video of two players using the table without a robot.

The project requires a bit of woodworking, as you might expect. You also need to drill 576 holes for air to raise the puck. Some of the components are also 3D printed with PETG. The automated defense use the camera and trust that the puck is the only red thing on the table. The servo moves to intercept the incoming puck and return the shot. We were disappointed that the video did not show autoplay.

We wondered if they had considered making a pair of detachable robots and letting them play with each other. If you like soccer, the robot could probably adapt. We’ve seen other robot air hockey contenders, so maybe a better idea would be to build different robots and let them compete for the gold medal.