OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I've started working through the Newgy Robopong 2050 drills. I figured it would be interesting, fun, and educational to create a thread dedicated to discussing the various drills, my experiences with them, maybe some videos of me using them, and to allow other robopong users to compare notes and ideas.

The robot has 64 drills:

1-5: Beginners
6-15: Intermediate
16-20: Serve return
21-25: Backspin
26-30: Randomisation
31-32: High ball
33-40: Figures
41-45: Letters
46-50: Novice progressive
51-55: Intermediate progressive
56-60: Advanced player
61-64: Expert player

Of these drills, the latter 32 can be replaced by user-defined drills, so your drills may not match mine. The first 32 are locked.

So:

- what drills have you used and benefited from?
- any refinements of the drills?
- any experiences or difficulties?
- any questions or comments?

_________________
Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Today I spent about 45 mins working through the first five drills (beginner drills). These require the robot's head to be set at angle 2, which means pointing down at the serving side of the table. The robot is set to deliver a topspin ball. Now, in terms of where the ball wall land on 'my' side of the table, imagine my side of the table is represented by the following grid:



The centre line of the court goes through C,H,M. I'll use this as reference for all the drills.

Drill 1
The ball lands in G and I, alternately, fairly slowly, and fairly high. The drill indicates that the first ball should be hit as backhand topspin and the second as forehand topspin. I found this drill required me to lean in and almost flick the ball in order to get it at the top of the bounce. I also found that the delay between balls was pretty slow. I was also thinking this was a pretty crap serve, and perhaps I should stand in my returning serve ready position, and then move into position, and perhaps that was why it was so slow. I didn't persevere with this drill for very long, but perhaps on reflection I should stick with it until I can hit 100 balls without an error. Perhaps I should also wait for the ball and hit it as the ball falls... that feels alien for a topspin shot, though. Thoughts / experiences / advice?

Drill 2

In this drill, the ball lands in H and J respectively, alternately, fairly slowly. The drill manual suggests that both be hit as FH topspin. I tend to favour hitting a BH topspin, from my ready position, if the ball is landing on the centre line. I can hit it pretty much anywhere on the table, and with a short stroke, can generate more pace that with the FH. I hadn't looked at the manual, so I didn't do FH for this shot. Again, perhaps if I didn't treat this as a serve, and instead just as a FH drill, I'd stand differently and play both FH and move my feet.

Drill 3

In this drill, the ball lands in F, H and H respectively, alternately, fairly slowly. Again, I treated the first two balls as BH and only the third as FH, and again this was from a ready to receive serve position. I noticed that my shots from the balls landing in the middle were the best. Once more, I think I should revisit this without a 'returning serve' head on! I liked this drill and drill 2.

Drill 4

This is described as an 'hourglass'. The ball lands in B, then N, then D, then L. I found this rather tricky, although I was getting tired. I made a number of mistakes, and the spin felt quite different, even though I hadn't changed the spin or the head angle. I made a note to return to this one, but thought I'd just try Drill 5.

Drill 5

This is referred to as 'Falkenberg Beginner'. This places two balls in F and the one in H, and asks the user to play a BH, then a FH and then another FH. I could see this being a good exercise for footwork and BH and FH, but again I was still thinking of this as some weird sort of service return drill, and again, I played all the shots as BH, from my service ready position! However, I found this pretty easy.

Conclusion

I made the assumption that because the ball was bouncing on the other side first, these were all drills emulating service return. I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, and that the drills are set up this way to make them easier and slower than drills with one bounce. The next time I'm going to work on each drill for either a set amount of time, or until I can hit 100 balls without an error.

Main question so far is about hitting the ball that lands in H, and on the centre line. Firstly, thoughts on whether I should hit this with FH or BH under normal game conditions (I guess: it depends), and secondly on the drills (I guess: follow the manual until you get the hang of it, and then vary).

I found the drills worthwhile, and good exercise. I don't have any kind of tripod that would allow me to record myself, so I may need to take a friend / partner / child with me next time, and then upload the video!

_________________
Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

I've found it to be more normal if aimed so that the balls go over the net before the first bounce. To me its not very realistic doing most serves because the speed always increases proportionately to the spin, where in the real world you can get balls that are slow and spinny, or ones that are fast and not spinny as well, so there are a lot of permutations of speed and spin that it can't do that a person WILL do.

I ended up creating my own drills mostly so I could work on the sequences I was goofing the worst. Somewhere here, way back I posted one but got no replies at all.

_________________
--- Push/Chop or Attack ---
USATT 1684 left, Lost it all by playing sick and hurt.
No legs left, no more backing up, just smash it!
Blade: TTPiet OFF-/ALL custom
FH: Spinlord Waran Short Pips
BH: Joola Badman Reloaded 0X

Have you continued doing the drills. I am thinking of getting a 2050 rather than 2040 because of the drills.

If you can't go to a club and practice with a partner, the drills will be much better than not having the drills, because you will be able to focus on types and locations of balls and sequences of balls, which is a lot better than just one ball over and over. I have a 2000 also, and it had to do it like your 2040 from that respect. You might also want to consider a newer design if one is available that can do drills.

_________________
--- Push/Chop or Attack ---
USATT 1684 left, Lost it all by playing sick and hurt.
No legs left, no more backing up, just smash it!
Blade: TTPiet OFF-/ALL custom
FH: Spinlord Waran Short Pips
BH: Joola Badman Reloaded 0X

You can follow Samson Dubina 's training program; he uses the Newgy Robo-Pong 2050.

that tires me out just watching! wish i could move like that, much less move and make the strokes.

are those routines built in to the 2050, or are those custom drills that he put in himself?

built in drills

This robot seems awesome. Is there a more affordable version