Beer Pong Turret: How PLACITECH Built It

A beer pong turret sounds like a solution in search of a problem, which is partly the point. In this Elektor TV clip, electrical engineer and PLACITECH creator Alessandro Placitelli explains how a deliberately playful project became an exercise in motors, mechanics, 3D printing, and iterative prototyping. The discussion comes from Elektor Engineering Insights #61, where Placitelli discussed the engineering work behind his larger builds.

Why Build a Beer Pong Turret?

Placitelli says the project began not with a burning need to automate beer pong, but with a desire to build a mechanism he had never made before. His first thought was a simpler turret, perhaps carrying a laser pointer. The idea then grew into something that could launch a projectile, which forced him to work out a practical pitching mechanism rather than simply position a servo or motor.

Two Motors and a Pair of Rollers

The finished launcher uses two DC motors driving rollers that grip and accelerate a ping-pong ball, much like the basic principle of a baseball pitching machine. A joystick controls the turret’s movement, while a separate button fires the ball. It is a straightforward concept once it works, but getting there took several mechanical iterations.

One early version used a barrel intended to guide the ball after launch. Instead, the barrel robbed the ball of speed. Placitelli says he redesigned the launcher several times before arriving at the working arrangement shown in the clip. That makes the beer pong turret a useful example of why mechanical prototyping cannot always be solved neatly in CAD before anything is built. Friction, alignment, clearances, motor speed, and the behavior of a lightweight ball all become part of the design once the mechanism exists in the real world.

Building to Learn

The broader point is Placitelli’s approach to maker projects: a build does not always need a serious practical purpose. Some projects solve a problem; some are simply fun; others are worth doing because they force you to learn a technique you have not used before. In this case, the turret provided a reason to experiment with a motorized launcher, joystick control, mechanical iteration, and a 3D-printed structure in one finished object.

That is a useful distinction for anyone waiting for the perfect project idea before starting. Choosing something slightly ridiculous can be perfectly rational if the engineering problem underneath it is new to you. The result here happens to launch ping-pong balls across a room, but the same lessons apply to feeders, launchers, positioning systems, small robots, and other electromechanical builds.