The development and implementation of a table tennis computer game

Abstract

Throughout the past few decades, video gaming has evolved significantly, where manufactures have now restructured the way one plays and interacts with video games, providing the best possible virtual reality experience. Motion sensors, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, have become common components in today's controllers, allowing players to use movement to play the game. This final year project tackled the development and implementations of a single-player table tennis computer game. The game is controlled either with an Xbox 360 controller, or a Nintendo Wiimote. The latter involved detecting the user's movements by reading and processing the acceleration values read via Bluetooth from the integrated three-axis accelerometer. Whilst the main objective was not to develop a marketable version of the game, it was intended to provide a satisfactory virtual reality experience to the user. Two algorithms that track the back-hand and fore-hand swings, and left and right movements during play were developed. The two algorithms make use of the 'Wiimote' accelerometer data. Finally, since the game developed can be used as a test bed, further work can enhance the player experience, with the implementation of more complex motion classification algorithms and/or the use of more advanced sensors.