Table Tennis Nets
Not nets for the table, or even nets for robots, but nets for picking up balls! How did the world (or at least table tennis clubs with lots of training going on) operate before we had them for picking up balls? We use Ball Amigos from Butterfly (since MDTTC is sponsored by Butterfly). Paddle Palace sells Stiga Ball Catchers. Newgy sells Pong Pals, a tube for picking up balls, though I prefer nets. (JOOLA also has nets for picking up balls, but their shopping site is temporarily down for maintenance so I can't look it up.) Feel free to comment on other ball pickup devises - there are more. (Addendum: There's also the PingPongBuddy sold at Megaspin, as noted by PipProdigy below.)
One of the funnier moments at MDTTC came about ten years ago when an actual butterfly flew into the club. So one of the kids spent the next ten minutes chasing it with a Butterfly net! (Technically a Butterfly Ball Amigo, but Butterfly net sounds funnier, and it was a Butterfly net being used as a butterfly net.) He never caught the butterfly, but he did chase it out the door.
Team USA Table Tennis News Item