Monday, January 01, 2007

Inventor Creates Ping Pong for Three

"Secil Boyd keeps dreaming up new ideas from remote control flying gadgets to new table games and even space-matter theories. "My mind doesn't seem to turn off so easily," the 53-year-old inventor joked at his Holualoa art gallery.

Boyd has invented a type of three-player ping pong, he's come up with a special relativity theory and even made a remote control flying toy out of a Christmas gift from his daughter.

TriPong uses an odd-shaped table at regulation ping pong height and Plexiglas "nets" that divide the table into three wedges, each with a neutral zone and scoring zone.



He pitched the idea several months ago to a major mainland sports company and now is in negotiations for a development contract. After a presentation, their production staff built one and have played it since, Boyd said.

"By this time next year," Boyd said. "I predict this will be the hottest seller they've got."

The idea came from his father, who taught his two sons cutthroat billiards.

"With three players, you've got that extra competitive energy," he said. "It just changes the game."

Each player starts with one point and it takes three points to win, so players must team up to keep themselves in the game.

"If you win TriPong, you're better than the other two players," Boyd said. "When you lose the ability to play like a team, the winner will emerge.'"

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous5:21 PM

    looks cool, but if you play it out in your mind you can tell it wouldn't be very fun. There is a reason why it doesn't exist. At the same time, halfbakery.com has this exact idea explained in detail, less the plexiglass nets, so it isn't even patentable- oh well.

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