Pool Cue Testing Robot

[Barioni Cues]

I can't tell for sure from the pictures but your robot may have two major problems that Predator's original Iron Willie had.

The minor one is how stiff the bridge is. Too stiff a bridge too close to the cue ball can affect how much squirt you get. With a long bridge, as shown in the pictures, I think this is probably not major.

The more important issue is the stiffness of the coupling of the "grip hand". If this is not roughly the stiffness of a human grip the results can be affected in major ways. In the case of the experiments in the Jacksonville Project this problem was discovered/understood late during the week of testing and probably polluted some of the results.

The solution was to use bubble wrap between the cue and the machine at the grip or to have humans shoot shots where the effects were objectionably large. I have heard that Predator has since fixed both of these problems. (Iron Willie Sr. also had a very stiff bridge fairly close to the cue ball.)

Hey Bob, I hope we can stay in touch. I would love to have all your input on the testing that we do. It doesn't matter if its wrong or right as the tests will prove the point. But like in a pool game it is nice to look at the shot from all angles. So any theories you have will be greatly appreciated and will definitely be considered in all the testing.
To clarify your statements above the robot proved you are right.
Too stiff a bridge too close to the cue ball does affect how much squirt you get. For the record are robot is adjustable but does allow us to test this point. I would also like to add that even for the robots that are not adjustable that the squirt or cue ball deflection should be the same for all the cues tested in that robot. The bubble wrap is a good idea but since it is not the same thickness to the thousands and because it has to overlap
may through off the results as it would not be the same for all cues. The bubble wrap could move or get squished more with one cue than the other. Our robot has a special machined rubber that is the same to the thousands and is very consistent. The grip is adjustable and well as the wrist joint. How ever my robot does not drop the shoulder. As many teachers say the only moving part should be the elbow. It would not be to hard to make a second robot that does drop the shoulder. The shoulder could have springs that control the dropping of the shoulder. Our robot also has an adjustable bridge meaning the stiffness of the bridge is adjustable as well as the bridge length and the follow through. This was designed this way to be able to test many different theories.

 

[Barioni Cues]

... how everyone that creates a shooting robot concludes that their cues deflect the least.[/QUOTE


I think it may be because if you care enough to try and correct the problems with deflection and go through the trouble of making a robot, at that point you have the ability to test all the cues you want. If yours is not the best that it can be, you then have the option through trial and error and consistent testing to make yours more and more accurate. You also have a better understanding of what really makes a cue deflect.

 

[Barioni Cues]

Pretty cool. I'm sure that Kevin Peigan will be most pleased to know his cue is ready. Although, I can't guarantee that he will be happy to see that his cue is being whacked around in your new device. He is pretty picky on how he treats his equipment. It took a while for him to trust me with his stuff.

Just teasin ya. Kevin is a good guy and he probably knows already. You don't want a big Indian knocking on your door with a tomahawk in his hand. I already saw one of your shafts that he is using. The ferrule looks great. He must like it because thats all he is using now.

I did put a Black King on your shaft too. He likes it.

Thanks for the complements. The robot leaves absolutely no marks on the shaft or the butt. I like to test every cue that goes out now with the robot. Before our testing equipment was not as accurate and with shafts having more or less growth rings and of different diameter tips it is hard to get all of our cues to play as accurately from one to another. With the robot it allows us to fine tune a shaft or cue to play with in a certain area of accuracy. We can put a shaft in the robot and see how accurate it is playing. Then take the shaft off and work on it. Put it back in the robot and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt if we made it more or less accurate. The results are stunning. I brought my own game up at least a ball by testing my playing cue that I use personally and doing some modifications to it. I had no idea that the tip had that much to do with it. I reduced the cueball deflection in my own personal playing cue by 1-1/4" just in the tip alone. After finding this out I went to see what it was going to be like playing with it. I was not really sure what to expect. In 1 hour and 45 minutes at the table in the pool hall " The Cue Spot" in Merced, Ca, I missed three shots. I was making combinations and all. Not only was I pocketing the object ball but the combo ball as well. This was last Wednesday or Thursday. The guy working was Chris and he witnessed this and can attest to it. It blew my mind.

 

[Barioni Cues]

Can it drop it's elbow on the follow through:thumbup:?

No it can't. It would not be to hard to make another robot that could drop it's elbow though.
When I play I try not to drop my elbow. Most creditable pool teachers say the only thing that should be moving is your elbow and not drop your shoulder. I would like to build a robot that could drop the shoulder just to test those theories. I know it will have an affect on some shots. But still it will not change the results from one cue to another.

 

[Bob Jewett]

... The bubble wrap is a good idea but since it is not the same thickness to the thousands and because it has to overlap
may through off the results as it would not be the same for all cues. The bubble wrap could move or get squished more with one cue than the other. Our robot has a special machined rubber that is the same to the thousands and is very consistent. ...

Hi John,
I agree that the bubble wrap is not ideal for simulating the human hand. A better choice that would take more engineering is foam rubber liner for the grip area. As you noted it would not work exactly the same for all cues but the main point is to disconnect the weight of the swinging arm from the cue stick during impact. The prediction is that if the weight of the arm is left stiffly connected, extreme spin shots will not work well because the cue stick will not slow down enough to keep the tip from dragging on the side of the ball towards the end of the shot.

I would be interested to know the stiffness of the grip. That is, how far does the cue stick move relative to the arm for each pound of force? It may be that you are already close to normal action.

 

[Mr. Bond]

Hi John,
I agree that the bubble wrap is not ideal for simulating the human hand. A better choice that would take more engineering is foam rubber liner for the grip area. As you noted it would not work exactly the same for all cues but the main point is to disconnect the weight of the swinging arm from the cue stick during impact......

good point ....i'd like to see an automated shooter that can recoil after the hit as well...

seems like you could build a cue holder on a counterweighted cam...like a piston rod, so that it can strike and pull back

 

[elvicash]

A couple of thought but first I would like to say that is a nice test device. You video mentioned proof of accuracy and I would say that shows repeatability not accuracy. I work with industrial robots as my work and that is definitely understood that there is a major difference between accuracy and repeatability. I considered creating a servo based stroking machine in the past but do not think the cost would be easily recouped. I did not follow through myself on a servo machine and am glad to see you sharing your robot. Thanks.

Can this robot draw the cue ball?

How far does the cue tip extend past the initial impact with the cue ball?

Have you done much with cue ball and object ball interaction?

How fast and how slow do you think you can set you robot up to hit the ball perhaps in table lengths unless you know in/sec or mph (ipod break app). If you make it very slow meaning less than a lag speed and let the cue ball bounce off the end rail and roll to a stop how repeatable is where the cue ball stops.

Thanks again for sharing the robot.

 

[Barioni Cues]

A couple of thought but first I would like to say that is a nice test device. You video mentioned proof of accuracy and I would say that shows repeatability not accuracy. I work with industrial robots as my work and that is definitely understood that there is a major difference between accuracy and repeatability. I considered creating a servo based stroking machine in the past but do not think the cost would be easily recouped. I did not follow through myself on a servo machine and am glad to see you sharing your robot. Thanks.

Can this robot draw the cue ball?

How far does the cue tip extend past the initial impact with the cue ball?

Have you done much with cue ball and object ball interaction?

How fast and how slow do you think you can set you robot up to hit the ball perhaps in table lengths unless you know in/sec or mph (ipod break app). If you make it very slow meaning less than a lag speed and let the cue ball bounce off the end rail and roll to a stop how repeatable is where the cue ball stops.

Thanks again for sharing the robot.

Good point there. I have to agree with you that it shows repeatability. But I was thinking that if a robot could repeat the same movements and the same speed and get the same results that it must have some accuracy to it. My concern is to be able to put multiple cues in the robot and see which one plays closer to center. I also want to test to see if what I do to the shaft in terms of tuning is making it play closer to center or not. This robot does test this well. I have found it to be an amazing tool. As far as whether or not how accurate it is in relation to physics does not interfere with what I am trying to do. I mean that if it adds deflection that a human would not doesn't matter. I am not testing robot vs. human. If the robot adds deflection or anything else which I don't think it does, It adds it in the same amount for every cue that goes in it. I put my personal playing cue in the robot only to find out it did not play as well as I thought. I spent many hours trial and error trying different things to see what made it better or what effect it had on the tests. When I was done I corrected my cue by 2". The cue plays better now than ever. I am still trying different thing to see how far I can correct it.
To answer some of your questions, Yes the robot can draw the ball.
The tip now is set up to go 5" past the cue ball on contact. This feature on the robot is adjustable. The follow through can be adjusted from
0 to 8". Yes I have done tests with the cue ball and object ball interaction.
Right now I am mostly concerned with being able to hit the contact spot on the object ball that I am aiming for. I want my cue to make the cue ball hit the spot on the object ball that I am aiming for with off center cue ball hits. I am aware of swerve, throw, and so forth when an object ball is present. I also know both of these are correcting forces to compensate for the cue ball deflection or squirt as some call it. I can set the robot up to hit as soft as a few inches or as hard as 5 or 6 table lengths. We are adding a laser and a radar to the robot. We have a laser now but it is to low powered in my opinion. We are getting a high power laser soon.
Thanks for your input. It all helps. I hope I answered some of your questions.

 

[Barioni Cues]

Robot name

Ok all you pool players out there. We need a name for our robot.
So who ever comes up with the coolest name for the robot we will send you (3) of our latest layered leather tips for free.

 

[The Chinchilla]

I can't tell for sure from the pictures but your robot may have two major problems that Predator's original Iron Willie had.

The minor one is how stiff the bridge is. Too stiff a bridge too close to the cue ball can affect how much squirt you get. With a long bridge, as shown in the pictures, I think this is probably not major.

The more important issue is the stiffness of the coupling of the "grip hand". If this is not roughly the stiffness of a human grip the results can be affected in major ways. In the case of the experiments in the Jacksonville Project this problem was discovered/understood late during the week of testing and probably polluted some of the results.

The solution was to use bubble wrap between the cue and the machine at the grip or to have humans shoot shots where the effects were objectionably large. I have heard that Predator has since fixed both of these problems. (Iron Willie Sr. also had a very stiff bridge fairly close to the cue ball.)

Wouldn't his results be useful in that even if the robot didn't mimic a human stroke perfectly, the amount of deflection (and other variables to test) could be found for each cue. In short, do you feel like the robot has to mimic the human stroke perfectly to get useful results? It seems like whatever cue he finds has the least deflection would have the least deflection with humans too, or am I wrong on this?

 

[The Chinchilla]

I can't tell for sure from the pictures but your robot may have two major problems that Predator's original Iron Willie had.

The minor one is how stiff the bridge is. Too stiff a bridge too close to the cue ball can affect how much squirt you get. With a long bridge, as shown in the pictures, I think this is probably not major.

The more important issue is the stiffness of the coupling of the "grip hand". If this is not roughly the stiffness of a human grip the results can be affected in major ways. In the case of the experiments in the Jacksonville Project this problem was discovered/understood late during the week of testing and probably polluted some of the results.

The solution was to use bubble wrap between the cue and the machine at the grip or to have humans shoot shots where the effects were objectionably large. I have heard that Predator has since fixed both of these problems. (Iron Willie Sr. also had a very stiff bridge fairly close to the cue ball.)

Wouldn't his results be useful in that even if the robot didn't mimic a human stroke perfectly, the amount of deflection (and other variables to test) could be found for each cue. In short, do you feel like the robot has to mimic the human stroke perfectly to get useful results? It seems like whatever cue he finds has the least deflection would have the least deflection with humans too, or am I wrong on this?

I would suggest some type of "guiders" to consistently place the cb instead of just using a spot too.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Wouldn't his results be useful in that even if the robot didn't mimic a human stroke perfectly, the amount of deflection (and other variables to test) could be found for each cue. In short, do you feel like the robot has to mimic the human stroke perfectly to get useful results? It seems like whatever cue he finds has the least deflection would have the least deflection with humans too, or am I wrong on this?

I would suggest some type of "guiders" to consistently place the cb instead of just using a spot too.

I think it can mostly do comparisons OK, but I think a major problem comes in if some entirely new action is caused by the robot. One possible such action I noted above: the stick with a stiffly attached "hand" becomes very heavy and tends not to slow down as much on contact of the tip to the cue ball. This can cause extra and very unwanted contact on the cue ball -- almost like a miscue. If this happens earlier for some sticks than others as the tip moves away from center, those sticks will be unfairly downgraded.

 

[Bob Jewett]

... I would suggest some type of "guiders" to consistently place the cb instead of just using a spot too.

The Meucci robot used a very thin sheet of metal with a hole drilled in it. That was attached to the robot so placement of the cue ball relative to the cue stick was very repeatable. I think there were screw adjustments to move the ball holder side-to-side.

 

[LuckedOut]

Ok all you pool players out there. We need a name for our robot.
So who ever comes up with the coolest name for the robot we will send you (3) of our latest layered leather tips for free.

A NAME......Cool Hand Luke

 

[Bob Jewett]

Ok all you pool players out there. We need a name for our robot.
So who ever comes up with the coolest name for the robot we will send you (3) of our latest layered leather tips for free.

Calling out for robot companions: RU-Q2
For people of a certain age: Steely Dan
It's a cue tester, right? QT-100
Honor the maker: Barioni's Amazing Cue Tester - Experimental Robot In Action = BACTERIA. Hey, at least people will remember it.

 

[Barioni Cues]

stiffly attached "hand" becomes very heavy

I think it can mostly do comparisons OK, but I think a major problem comes in if some entirely new action is caused by the robot. One possible such action I noted above: the stick with a stiffly attached "hand" becomes very heavy and tends not to slow down as much on contact of the tip to the cue ball. This can cause extra and very unwanted contact on the cue ball -- almost like a miscue. If this happens earlier for some sticks than others as the tip moves away from center, those sticks will be unfairly downgraded.

The wrist and hand on the robot is made of light aluminum. Well the fact of the matter is the whole robot is made out of lightweight aluminum. The robot only weights about 35-40 pounds I’m guessing. Anyway the wrist or hand is probably lighter than my big old hand. The grip on the cue is adjustable. I can make it slip if I wanted too. I tested the same cue with a tight grip and a loose slip grip. The results were the same. I then tested many different tightness including loose. The results were the same. It didn’t seem to make a difference. I don’t know why, what Bob Jewit says makes sense but for some reason the robot is showing that it doesn’t make a difference. Maybe the wrist hand is to light. Maybe the ball leaves the tip to fast for it to come in affect. Maybe it makes more difference at a slower stroke speed.

 

[RRR]

Name: "Cue-tip" = Cue Testing in Progress


Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk

 

[Bob Jewett]

... Anyway the wrist or hand is probably lighter than my big old hand. The grip on the cue is adjustable. I can make it slip if I wanted too. I tested the same cue with a tight grip and a loose slip grip. The results were the same. ..

I think the difference will only be seen -- if at all -- at the extreme off-center limit near miscues. In the case of the Predator robot with the very stiff grip, I think it made the cue stick effective weight about five or six pounds.

The human hand is so soft that the cue stick does not "see" the weight of the hand during the tip-to-ball contact. It takes a couple of milliseconds for the flesh of the hand to "wind up" and by then the ball is gone.

One way to see if the grip is appropriate is to get a high-speed video such as we see in the thread http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=233127 -- if the cue stick speed drops by 50% on contact with the cue ball, then the setup is probably fine. If it drops by a much smaller percentage, then the grip is too stiff.

 

[Blue Hog ridr]

I held Kevin Peigans cue in my hand today at a local 9 ball tourney.
Its a Barioni cue that was featured in the robot arm vid.
I can tell you one thing. It sure is a pretty cue (very well executed points and veneers) and just holding it,
nicely balanced and well built. Maybe I will get to hit a couple with it in the future.

I have no idea if the exotic wood ferrules make a huge difference in playing but they look great.

 

[dr_dave]

Ok guys,
Here is the first video of our pool cue-testing robot. I am making a new video now of various brands of cues being tested and compared to ours. This video will be followed up by series of "Myth Busters" videos proving beyond a shadow of a doubt different theories such as tip shaping- (dime or nickel), shaft diameter- (10,11,12,13,or 14mm), different brands of tips, different brands of chalk, stiff shafts vs. flexible shafts, light cues vs. heavy cues and so on.
Here is the link to the first video in the series: http://www.barionicues.com/video_gallery

FYI, I did a bunch of experiments with a cue-testing robot a while back. Many of the experiments and results are described and illustrated in the following articles:

"Return of the squirt robot" (Billiards Digest, August, 2008).
"Squirt - Part VII: cue test machine results" (Billiards Digest, February, 2008).
"Squirt - Part II: experimental results" (Billiards Digest, September, 2007)​

Check them out. You might get some good ideas for what sort of things to test and what sort of things you should be careful to control.

If you do some similar experiments (and control things more carefully than we did at times), it will interesting to see how the results compare.

I look forward to seeing your results of your tests.

Good luck,
Dave