The Mobile Tennis game was designed to attract customers to a travelling roadshow to promote a washing powder during Wimbledon.

A member of the public wearing a glove to simulate a tennis racket plays the game in front of the large graphic, see the photograph.

Paul Oliver of Brantham Electronics was approached by Twydell Design to provide the electronic and control software for the project.

Digitally recorded sound of the umpire, crowd and ball being hit alerts the player to the fact that the ball has been served. In a random sequence, one of 10 tennis balls is illuminated (6 for children) and the competitor has to cover the ball with the glove. The shiny surface of the glove reflects the light into a detector, the hit is registered and the tennis ball light is extinguished.

The control electronics measures the time between the ball being illuminated and the racket-glove covering it. The competitor's score is displayed and is accompanied by a digitally recorded sound track of the crowd's reaction.

"In order to make this game work, we needed a solution to the problem of how to detect when a glove simulating a tennis racket covered a lamp’’ says John Twydell of Twydell Design. ‘’ Paul Oliver runs Brantham Electronics and we naturally turned to him to find a solution. He was able to design the system and both supply and install the sensors, sound stores, control electronics, amplifier and speakers.
The simulated tennis game was a great success with the public and our client was delighted. From our point of view, working with Paul in this way took both stress and risk out of the project’’.