The saying "every crisis is also a seed of opportunity" is certainly shared by Toni Ulčar. A mechanical engineering student and tennis enthusiast, he had a soft spot for empty tennis courts in times of strict coronation restrictions. Although it was forbidden to socialise, no one said he couldn't play alone. His first choice of teammate was a classic tennis cannon - a device that fires tennis balls by itself. A nice teammate, obedient, quiet and tireless, but also boring and rigid.

But could there be another way? A sport as dynamic as tennis needs more movement, more variety, more surprises. In tennis, we cannot progress indefinitely in a rigid way.

The beauty of the extra time in the corona was that great ideas could be born. So Toni conceived the original concept at home a tennis cannon that moves around the court to replace playing with teammates.

He built the first prototype in his home room (he's lucky he's a machinist). It didn't work. He tried another way. It didn't work. He surfed the internet, learned new skills and implemented them in manufacturing... When you are alone in your room like this, trying and still trying, the biggest struggles are within yourself - to persevere or to give up? Fortunately, he won that battle, because after many attempts he managed to make the first working prototype.

Today he comments: "Everyone must be responsible for himself first and foremost. Nowadays, knowledge is at everyone's fingertips. If you want it, anything is possible."

The key step for him was: 'Before investing a lot of time and money in an idea, it makes sense to test it with users - will it be useful and interesting to others? Would tennis players and coaches even have something like this?"

The great reactions were often accompanied by surprise: "Now that we see this, we are amazed that something like this doesn't exist." Why not? "It's quite a challenge to ensure controlled movement, especially when the ground is not completely flat... It was harder than I thought at first."

He named the tennis cannon Sportbot. "The name combines my two passions - sport and robotics."

The Sportbot is capable of moving around the tennis court and launching balls of different speeds, heights and rotations. The mobile app allows you to pre-program it in any way you want, easily and in advance. The most advanced feature is Play a match, where Sportbot decides where to move and what ball to launch. You play it as if you had a real teammate in front of you.

Superb! Toni was also recognised as a remarkable story by the creators of Podjetno naprej >>

When we ask Tony what advice he could give to those who still have an idea, he remains silent for a while. Reserved. Then he says modestly: "I don't know, what I'm going to say will be very generic ... It is necessary to persevere. And to believe in yourself. Often the biggest obstacles are created by our own thinking. There have been many moments when I would have liked to give up. It was also not easy to face the reactions of others - Why should I 'love' it? Why so complex, but not enough of the tennis tops that already exist? Yeah, probably true... But fortunately I persevered anyway. When you set yourself a project, see it through to the end. And make sure it can improve or make life easier for others."

He wants Sportbot to help people improve their tennis game and really enjoy it. "Sometimes it's hard for me to see how some people really want to play tennis, but they torture themselves so much." Tennis is one of the most difficult sports in terms of coordination, so people get frustrated quickly when progress is slow. They may even give up the sport. A pity, isn't it?

But what can the City of Acrobats do to help? Dewesoft has given him a measuring device on which the boys can take measurements, Katapult Metal welds and prepares aluminium pieces for him, ZPI - the Zasavje Business Incubator - is a great help, mentors help him with writing code and designing electronic circuits...

Integration into a supportive environment has also played an important role in their progress. Startup Consortium (of which Katapult is a member), which operates under the auspices of the Slovenian Enterprise Fund. There, the team received individual advice, mentoring and expert support - from product development and industrialisation and production to sales support and inclusion in marketing and growth incubation programmes.

The project received crucial validation when tennis legends such as Goran Ivanisevic, Roger Federer, and car manufacturer Lexus.

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Padel - the fastest growing sport and an opportunity

Padel is a racquet sport, usually played in pairs on a 20 × 10 m fenced court, which is a combination of tennis and squash.

The Sportbot team saw an opportunity in this fast-growing sport and developed the a dropped version of the moving cannon. The first products have already reached America.

This has created the next wave of innovation in fell training. The device allows players, coaches and clubs to train more efficiently, structure training sessions better and make pitches more productive.

Further technical specifications can be found on: https://sportbot.tech/