A Robotic Golf Putter to Fix Your Short Game
Sparks and Code's robotic golf putter sinks shots so you don't have to!
To the uninitiated, golf putting seems like a rather simple process. Swing the putter at the ball in the direction of the hole, and it generally goes in. Or that’s how it looks on TV at least. Those who have spent any time on the green know that if you don’t get all the details correct – aim, power, club angle, and other variables that you just have to get a feel for – the ball is going somewhere else.
If that seems like something a robot should do, then you’re not alone. YouTuber Sparks and Code made his own robotic auto-putter that can find the hole location, and then adjust its power and club angle to put the ball in it. As noted in the video below, pretty much the only thing that’s legal about the club is the angle of the handle, though the trigger button mounted to it might not be!
The device detects the hole – or rather the pin in the hole – using a LIDAR sensor. Code for this bit was written by Mr. Chat (i.e. ChatGPT), plus a few tweaks by Sparks and Code. While build details are fairly sparse, the auto-putter appears to run on some flavor of ESP development board.
With the pin position locked in, the club head is lifted as a pendulum via an electromagnet, and released to hit the ball at the proper speed. Left/right aiming is performed via a clever apparatus (geared like an automotive differential) that angles the club head clockwise or counterclockwise. Although we might not see this device on the PGA tour any time soon, it’s a great example of what you can make with a little time and ingenuity – or perhaps a lot of both!
For another DIY solution to help improve your short game, check out Nick Bild's Golf Ace — an Arduino-powered device that teaches you to putt like your favorite pro golfer through machine learning.