What is the best way I can detect if a ping pong ball has hit the ping pong table? The ultimate goal is to track points, which in the case ping pong, is how many times the ball has touched the table.
My concerns are with how light the ball and therefore the impact on the table will be. Is this too light for something like a vibration sensor to register?
Would you imagine the sensor working better on the paddles or the table?
I'm open to other suggestions on more reliable ways to track other than vibration. Definitely new to arduino.
Having played ping-pong (badly) I think a microphone would be able to count ball/table impacts quite well. The 'click' sound is much higher than that of hitting the paddle, so you might be able to differentiate on that basis. You might consider a two microphone/transducer arrangement- one coupled to the table and one not touching the table. If you get a simultaneous signal on both, the ball has hit the table. If you get only one signal (from the not-touching microphone) then the ball has hit a paddle. This also gives you the option of getting some timing information.