Olympic medalist faces machine in table tennis (video)

By OlympicTalkOct 3, 2017, 3:43 PM EDT
1 Comment

Olympic table tennis bronze medalist Jun Mizutani of Japan took on a different type of challenger on Monday — FORPHEUS, a machine.

FORPHEUS wasn’t quite high-tech enough to handle Mizutani’s normal attacking play, according to Agence France-Presse.

Video clips show the bronze medalist in a light hitting session with the robot.

“It wasn’t any different form playing a human,” Mizutani said, according to an Olympic Channel translation. “It kept getting better as we played. To be honest, I wanted to play it at its maximum level to see how good it is. If it evolves further, it might be a very good practice partner for table tennis players.”

FORPHEUS, introduced in 2015, was given the Guinness World Records title in February for being the first robot table tennis tutor.

“FORPHEUS also features an array of cameras that are situated above the ping-pong table, which monitors the position of the ball at an impressive rate of 80 times per second,” according to Guinness World Records. “This functionality also allows the robot to show its human student to see a projected image as to where the return ball will land so that they may improve their skills.”

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

VIDEO: 766-shot table tennis rally