3D Pong table brings the game into the real world

Pong is one of the first video games to be made, and the first one that was commercially successful. It's a pretty safe bet that most people have seen or played some form of the game. Maybe it wasn't on an Atari, and perhaps it was just a knockoff clone, but if it had two paddles and a square "ball" bouncing between the two, it's the same thing. But I can guarantee that you've never played a real-world game of Pong.

You might think that if you translated Pong into the real world, you'd end up with air hockey, or even ping-pong. And while those games were no doubt an inspiration for the video game, neither gives you the same experience. And that's why one group set out to build the world's first real-life Pong table.

In the video below, you can see that the table is the closest you can get to playing pong in a 3D space. The paddles are little more than rectangular blocks, and the "ball" is a cube. The paddles are controlled with a wheel, just as the original Atari cabinets had. In fact, if you had a top-down view of the table, it would look nearly identical to the screen of the game.

What's interesting is that it takes a lot more tech to get a physical version of the game running. The video gives a very short rundown of the creation process, though it doesn't give you step-by-step instructions on how to make your own. Hopefully as they perfect the process, the team behind this beautiful table will release instructions on how to make your own.

VIA: Gizmag