Update S4W. Robot ????

mjamja wrote: Been working more with the S4W robot.  Today I put out a 1.5 in thick board on the robot's side of the table and set the robot to serve by bouncing the ball off the board.  I got a nice low trajectory serve and I even got some double bounce serves with a reasonable amount of underspin.  I got a very realistic long underspin serve with significant underspin.  Board was placed about mid-table on the robot side.  Probably need to sand the board smoother to keep more of the underspin.  Might also try something slicker on top of the board.

Another thing you can do to help it make a serve would be to lower the head angles by taking a board or something to shim up the rear wheels on the floor.  Basically tipping the whole robot forward to allow more downward angle of the heads for making a shorter serve. I cant recall how far I could get out of this while keeping the robot safety on the floor without any instability....but I think it is written somewhere in my review thread on this robot.

You can also test making a different serve angle/bounce/path by removing the side net posts and moving the robot back off the table.  Experiment with what you can get by having the ball land closer to the robot end of the table on first bounce. 

mjamja wrote: Some other interesting "features"  have come to light.  On the first pass of a programmed landing sequence the robot throws an extra starter ball.  For example if I program a two ball sequence with one ball to the Fh and one to the Bh, the robot will start with 2 balls to the Fh and then 1 ball to the Bh.  From then on it throws 1 Fh and then 1 Bh until the total ball count is exceeded.  Maybe it does it so you will not be as surprised by the first ball in your desired sequence.

Yup....I was actually happy after I realized the robot does that.  It allows for a much more natural ease into the drill/sequence so it doesn't seem so pattern locked and boring. 

Mark...unfortunately that robot is not capable of making good/realistic serves.  It is more of a hitting robot so to speak.  Reason for this is two fold. 

1. Heads do not move up and down enough.
2. Programming and possibly motors are not fast enough to make the 2 wheel offset work well for backspin serves/shots. 

That said, other than service training....the robot is fun to use and fairly useful. 

clannewton wrote: vanjr wrote: Ha, ha, hardy ha, ha Am I missing something? It seems like a legitimate question. What is so funny?

vanjr plays at the same club.  It might even have been his robot.

Ha, ha, hardy ha, ha