The Digicue: a tiny electronic billiards trainer

One thing that’s consistent among amateur pool players is that they unknowingly stand up during their shots. Just as in golf, pool players need to keep their heads down and stay still after they shoot in order to hit straight.

The DIGICUE helps keep shots consistent by letting you know every time you’ve had extra movements that may alter your path. It conditions your play by silently buzzing whenever you’ve moved in an awkward way.

Here are the actions that the DIGICUE is constantly looking for:

• Jab strokes – When striking the cue ball, you always want to “strike through” and have the tip a few inches beyond the impact point rather than a quick poke.
• Steering - This is the action of moving your stick left or right after impact with the cue ball. You want to avoid this because it creates unwanted spin and trajectories.
• Standing up during your stroke – When this happens, your body can not help but steer the cue ball.
• Body english – This is when a player moves his body in the direction of where he wants the object ball to go while it’s in motion. Body english is the kiss of death because the more movement you rely on for each shot, the harder it becomes to replicate.

I’ve been playing pool my whole life and I wish the DIGICUE was available decades ago because it would have helped me to learn quicker.  It slips onto any pool cue and you’ll hardly know it’s there because it weighs less than an ounce. It has 3 levels of sensitivity and even though I play at a pretty high level, I haven’t gotten beyond level 2.

https://youtu.be/YeXEy4ARYNw

I really only have two gripes with the DIGICUE:

• There is only 1 type of buzzing and it’s sometimes difficult to figure out which offense caused it.
• There needs to be a way to track progress online.

If you are a student of the game or just play for fun, you really need to check out the DIGICUE. I’ve seen them as low as $79.99 on Amazon and if you think of it as having a trainer with you at all times, it’s a very, very good deal.

from Boing Boing http://ift.tt/2hQfDYJ
via IFTTT

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