Air Hockey Table

We decided to make an air hockey table not just for fun after the hard work in laboratory but also because this manufacturing process is interesting, exciting and not too expensive. Because of the short available time and our low budget we make a smaller table then the usual.

To make this project you'll need:

1. 2 sheets of MDF 22mm-thick - 2100x1800mm

2. 1 sheet of MDF 16mm-thick - 1400x1000mm

3. 2 Air compressors with the power 550W

4. Pipeline D130, 1.5m long

5. Compounds, screws, small legs, varnish

6. Arduino, 2 HC-SR04, JY-LKM1638

7. Aluminium corner 15x15x2mm

Moreover for making this project you'll need CNC-router, handtools, 3d-printer.

Firstly, you should check the design attached to the project (SolidWorks 2016), prepare DXF or any other file for CAM. The longest thing is drilling holes - it took about 7 hours.

For milling MDF was used 12mm end mill, for drilling was used 3mm drilling bit. On the last layer you have to make a slot for installing the aluminium border, for this you should use 2mm end mill.

MDF is rather heavy and the table itself is rather big so you'll need help in assembling it. On this step we used electric screwdriver, grinder, screws.

To create the sufficient airflow we used 2 air compressors 550W, connected with the pipeline to the first layer of the table.

The last important thing you should check is friction. If the surface is rough, the puck won't slide well, so in this case you should use varnish. Before the surface of our table become smooth, we made 3 layers of varnish.

We made some simple program using 2 ultra sonic sensors and display to count goals. The firmware attached