table pong project brings video gaming back to reality

table pong project: in 1972 ‘pong’, the classic atari game, became the world’s first sports arcade video game by taking the sport of tennis and transferring it into the virtual world. now, a small team in uruguay has done the reverse, taking ‘pong’ and bringing it back into the real world with a tangible version that actually more closely resembles traditional air hockey, rather than tennis.

daniel perdomo, creator of ‘table pong project’, says he and a few friends have been working on the game for the past two years. a lack of electrical expertise, production design or manufacturing backgrounds hasn’t stopped them from putting together what appears to be a solid, cleverly constructed mechanical table.

perdomo says he and his team picked up the required knowledge and skills from the internet, specifically google, youtube and trawling through forums, but this wouldn’t be so easy to guess when looking at the gaming table. the team has produced a video showing the construction process and inner workings of the table, and the end result seems to be a loyal, mechanical recreation of the original atari game.

each individual player can move their paddle with knobs similar to the arcade controls and, faithful to the arcade original, the angle of the hit changes the ball’s trajectory. it even looks like a single-player mode is built in, with the other paddle, somehow, moving by itself. despite perdomo calling it just a first working prototype, the table is finished off with all 70’s styling, including a retro shape, authentic-looking logo and play area, plus lights that flash when the ball bounces off the sides. 

the entire construction process is available to view in the video below, or if you prefer to see the gaming table in action, start at 3:45.

video courtesy of daniel padermo