With the first day of school around the corner, college students need to get all their back-to-school essentials -- things like notebooks, writing implements, and the Pongbot. The new party toy is a robot that adds a tricky challenge to beer pong, that ubiquitous drinking game played on college and university campuses around the world.
The Pongbot is a rolling robot that has space for carrying five standard red party cups. Its cup-holders can rotate at any moment, making it immensely more difficult to play beer pong. And, to add to the challenge, Pongbot itself can drive around the table. With these two moving elements, playing beer pong is a tricky affair.
Pongbot manages to stay on the table with the use of infrared sensors that can detect the table's edge, keeping all the beer in the cups where it belongs.
Key Themes Behind This Trend
- Robotics for Leisure and Entertainment
- Pongbot demonstrates the viability of using robotics to create novel leisure activities.
- Innovative Party Accessories
- The Pongbot is an example of a new breed of innovative party accessories that could become very popular among the college crowd.
- Smart Technology-enhanced Gaming
- The Pongbot is an excellent example of how smart technology can be applied to make traditional games more challenging and fun.
Where This Applies
- Robotics
- The development and manufacture of entertainment robotics like the Pongbot represents a new growth area for established robotics companies as well as startups.
- Alcoholic Beverages
- Beer pong is a popular party game within the college scene. The development of products like Pongbot represents a huge opportunity for breweries to engage with their target market.
- Party Supplies and Accessories
- Pongbot demonstrates the potential for product development within the party supplies industry, introducing new gaming elements and challenges to the market.
