* Illustration: Pietari Posti * Track, gymnastics, and swimming get all the attention, but the Olympics are about more than just games that are considered "popular" or that "everyone agrees are actual sports." Ping-Pong, sharpshooting, bowling — competitors in these events take home medals, too. So training centers around the world are deploying special high tech training equipment to give their athletes an edge in Beijing.
- __Robo-Pong 2040__Some US table-tennis players are training with this pong-bot, which spits out balls at up to 75 mph. The oscillating cannon can imitate serves, dish up vicious spins, and even simulate lobs. It fires up to 94 shots per minute, and players can test their accuracy by aiming returns at "pong-master" sensors.
- __Biomechanics-sensing bowling gloves and shoes__The United States Bowling Congress uses sensor-laden gloves and shoes to increase its bowlers' strikes. The gloves measure grip pressure to assess windup and release, and the shoes track foot movement (even the crucial finishing slide) down to the millisecond.
- __Aim analysis__To engineer better sharpshooters, the US Olympic Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, built a high tech gun range. Infrared cameras monitor barrel lasers to assess steadiness, underfoot force plates gauge stance, and sensors on the triggers detect who is getting just a little too itchy.
- __Sailing simulator__Professor Norman Saunders at the University of Melbourne has created a device that simulates sailing of Olympic-class boats (13'10" to 14'6"). It consists of a cockpit on a pneumatic ram — think mechanical bull, only with a boat hull — that imitates rolling as sailors steer or trim the sails.
- __Automatic shuttle-feeder__Badminton shuttlecocks come at you with a lot more arc than, say, a baseball (or even a Ping-Pong ball). So Swedish designer Mats Elm found he could use bursts of compressed air to power the first commercial shuttle feeder. It can deliver high and low lobs along with the occasional killer slam.
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