Who is Team Foosbot and what are they building?

Need:
The game of foosball has entered the homes of people all over the world since it was first invented in 1922 to replicate the game of soccer.  The game was patented in the UK in 1923 and in the US in 1927 and remains as one of the oldest table games still played today, falling only to billiards and table tennis.  Today, five annual World Championship Series events are hosted by the International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) which culminates in an annual World Cup where the best players from over 40 countries compete for world titles.  Even with the popularity of foosball, many tables remain highly unused, serving more as decorations than entertainment devices.  The automated foosball table would integrate modern technology with a classic game to provide entertainment to foosball table owners everywhere.


Team Objective:
The objective of this project is to design and build an automated foosball table machine which will serve as an opponent to a human player.  Besides providing the thrill of challenging a robot to a game of foosball, this also allow players to practice their skills when a human opponent is unavailable. The system will also keep score of the game for ease of play.  By doing so, the automated foosball table will provide an entertaining opponent for any game of foosball. Building this project on a senior-design team at the University of Akron will serve as the independent design requirement for the ABET accreditation.


Research Survey:

The concept of an automated foosball table has been explored by several groups, such as those from the University of Adelaide, the University of Sherbrooke, and the University of Waterloo.  Each design consists of different ways of detecting the position of the ball, moving the foosmen, and determining where to move the foosmen for game play resembling a human’s.  The program to control foosmen movement can be implemented on either a microprocessor or laptop computer.  This will need to communicate with the motors which need to be high-speed in order to accommodate real-time game play. 

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the project is detecting the position of the foosball.  Several groups have used various types of cameras (high-speed, pin-hole) to track the ball.  These designs are very complex and extremely expensive. Team Foosbot thought of a much simpler and cost-effective approach to achieving the same thing. The idea is to use infrared light emitting diodes (IR LEDs) and optical detectors (phototransistors) so that the ball breaks the light from the LED.  This option allows for a very fast response, although the accuracy is limited since the LED’s must be placed far enough apart to prevent illuminating multiple photodetectors.

No patents for automated foosball tables were found. The only design found that resembles this tracking ability is a YouTube video that shows the reaction of the foosmen in response to the LED (visible light spectrum) tracking.

Updates:

Updates will be made on this blog as well as the following outlets:

Facebook group page (TeamFoosbot)

YouTube Channel: TeamFoosbot

Google+: TeamFoosbot

Twitter: TeamFoosbot

Add us/subscribe to our pages and channels/comment on our blog

More posts will be made shortly with updates related to the progress of the project.


-Khalil
Project Lead, Team Foosbot