Pool, the cut-down version of snooker preferred by degenerate hustlers and people who like fun, seems ripe for automation. After-all, it’s all about calculating the right angles and then holding the cue steady, both of which a robot can easily manage. Add in the fact that a robot doesn’t drink its performance into oblivion as the night deepens, and the ball-sinking pool robot known as Deep Green seems invincible. In short, once it is playing, it will never have to leave a quarter on the side of the table.
Deep green is an industrial gantry robot, equipped with a cue and hung over a standard coin-op table. A digital camera reads the scene below and the robot’s computer brain compares it to 30 pre-stored images of an empty table, using the differences to decide where, and what color, the balls are. From there, the robot can nominate a ball and pocket and slide into action.
Because the motors that move the robot are capable of error, there is a secondary camera which looks along the line of the cue, just like a human does. By comparing the line seen from this point-of-cue (effectively sighting the centers of the balls) with the ideal line seen by the overhead camera, Deep Green can adjust itself to sink the perfect pot.
It can even rack the balls with perfection, picking up and then placing each one precisely in position without the need for a rack.
But what of a machine that can pot the ball every time? It would be a kind of idiot savant without a complex physics engine that knows about spin, bounce and all the other strategic factors a pro-player’s brain can assimilate. Thus, Deep Green thinks ahead. You’d better make sure you get your first shot in, and don’t miss another, or it’ll be game over.
Or will it? Deep Green also has an "augmented reality pool" mode where it can help you make your shots. Just like a pool-sim video game, Deep Green can project the ideal line for you right onto the baize. It will show you exactly where each ball will go depending on how you hold the cue, adjusting angles and rebound lines in real time as you change the angle of your incipient strike. Of course, you still have to hit it right, and decide on the amount of power and spin you want to add.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to beat the pool-playing robot. No amount of standing behind it and shouting “Miss! Miss!” is going to help you. Asking your girlfriend to stand behind the pocket it's aiming for is unlikely to help either. We guess you could try our cheat of last resort, which is lot lot safer practiced on an emotionless bot than the usual tattooed pool-shark we lose to: Stand nearby and, just as it makes the shot, shove its elbow, apologize and buy it a drink.
Project page [Deep Green Robot]
Toward a Competitive Pool-Playing Robot [Computer.org via the Giz and BBG]
