A college education has helped elevate an ordinary table to beer pong nirvana at a house just outside of the West Virginia University Evansdale Campus.
There, a group of four engineering students, three specializing in electrical engineering, have produced the “Best Beer Pong Table EVER,” as dubbed by a YouTube video.
What began as a nondescript table for playing the popular drinking game, which requires teams of two to loft ping pong balls back and forth into six beer-filled cups, has evolved into on a LED light-crammed, interactive showpiece that would make Las Vegas proud.
And since its official unveiling last month, the architects of Morgantown’s most advanced beer pong table - WVU graduate student Wes Hardin, seniors Rob Fernandez and C.J. Grimm and junior Blake Baldwin - have seen the table’s popularity skyrocket.
Of course, that’s to be expected for a shrine to what has become every college student’s favored drinking game.
THE CREATION
The best beer pong table ever had humble beginnings.
Hardin, the son of a carpenter, has a background in mechanical engineering. He built the base table out of wood last year in his basement, minus any lights. At the beginning of this year, Fernandez, a computer and electrical engineering major, decided with Hardin to add a few lights to the table.
“It kind of escalated to 600 lights,” Hardin said.
“Wes just started to get really carried away,” Fernandez said.
While Hardin was gung-ho about turning his original table into the beer pong table equivalent of a Christmas tree, Fernandez, at first, wasn’t so sure the idea wouldn’t just fizzle out.
He recalled a scene from early in the construction of the revamped table, when he, Hardin and Grimm were working on some early electrical pieces.
“Wes drills one hole in the table and just looks at us and says ‘You guys are tied to this now. Let’s go to work,’” Fernandez said. “Me and C.J. just look at each other and go, ‘I hope we can get this to work.’”
“We had no idea we could actually get this working,” Grimm said.
Baldwin joined the effort after Fernandez asked him a question concerning the table in class one day.
“I just kind of forced myself into it,” Baldwin said.
With the construction team complete, it was time to get to business. …