While many young men in college consider joining a fraternity, Joseph Patullo was already a part of one when he matriculated. The Florida Polytechnic University junior is currently studying computer engineering. Back home in Hollywood, Florida, he and his younger brother Paul were mostly interested in studying the game of table tennis. When Joseph left home over two years ago, with him went their regular rallies and good-natured sibling rivalry. "Once I came to college," said Joseph, "he (Paul) had no one to play with and was kind of bummed out." Wracked by guilt, Joseph's first solution was to buy a table tennis robot to serve as his stand-in. Unfortunately, all the struggling student could afford was a $30 starter model, which did little to appease Paul, now 16. "Brought it home and he said, 'This is kind of pathetic,' and I was like 'Yeah,'" recounts Joseph, who happens to be the president of his school's robotics club. After analyzing the pathetic ping-pong practice partner, Joseph decided he could put his own spin on it. The result is "Kazooie," which now features programmable settings for aim, speed and, yes, even spin. The name "Kazooie" was an inside joke, a sly nod to an egg-shooting character in the Super Smash Bros Ultimate video game enjoyed by both brothers. Local news coverage of the extremely thoughtful gift refers to the robot as Patullo's "invention." Of course, this is not accurate, as programmable table tennis robots like Newgy's Robo-Pong have existed since the 1970s. While not technically an inventor, Patullo has nonetheless shown himself to be exceptionally inventive in his D.I.Y. work ethic, adapting many parts from other machines and creating new ones with a 3-D printer. "I’m having so much fun," admitted Patullo. "I was up many nights until one or two in the morning after being here in the lab for four or five hours." Rather than robbing Peter to pay Paul, Joseph Patullo has chop-shopped a lobbing computer to play Paul. After all, necessity is the mother of invention. For a lonely, table tennis-loving kid named Paul, however, the invention of his brother is a necessity.

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