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Beer pong is a tailgating staple, but for many creative Tiger fans, rickety, dilapidated tables just don’t cut it.
 
Devin Klein, construction management sophomore, is a mastermind behind one brilliant beer pong table complete with a washer system for the ball.
 
The vibrant table holds more than 680 LED lights that form triangle designs at each end and outline the LSU logo in the middle of the table, covered with a piece of plexiglass to protect it from water damage.
 
Klein said the plexiglass cost about $150 — the most expensive part of the project.
 
Klein built the table during the summer with his roommates — mechanical engineering sophomore Dylan Aucoin, computer science sophomore Trey Gaulter and computer science sophomore Taylor Hymel — and two friends who attend Southeastern Louisiana University.
 
Aucoin said the table cost more than $700 to build and he and his roommates are still paying for occasional repairs. He said water has gotten under the plexiglass in one area of the table and someone stepped on one of the circuits that controls the LED lights at a party.
 
The roommates said they sometimes get nervous about keeping the table safe in their own apartment.
 
“There’s always that drunk person that wants to sit on the table and you’re like, ‘Why would you even think that’s an option?'” Klein said.
Klein said he’s not worried about someone trying to steal the table, however. It would be impossible for one person to carry.
 
“You’d need a whole team of people,” Klein said.
 
The roommates said the table’s weight of about 150 pounds, as well as its fragile wiring, has kept them from using it for tailgating.
 
“The wires are so delicate,” Klein said. “If someone touches it, they could just rip off.”
 
Despite their concerns, Klein said he and his roommates will set the table up outside to tailgate before the game against the University of Alabama on Nov. 6.
 
One of the table’s most unique features is the automatic ball washer at each end of the table.
 
Klein said a player can drop a ping pong ball into a hole and the ball will go through a tube to the other side of the table and sit in a reservoir that fills up with water. The water is circulated in a container under the table using a fish tank pump.
 
“No one had really done it that we knew,” Klein said of the ball washing feature. “We figured if we were spending this much time on it, we might as well go for it.”
 
Gaulter said he has heard from friends who are interested in buying a table similar to his. He isn’t sure who would want to buy it for the price the group would charge.
 
“No matter what we sold it for, it wouldn’t be worth the amount of time and money we spent on it,” Gaulter explained.
 
Andrew Ellender, accounting junior, said the best beer pong table he has ever seen was on the beach in Gulf Shores, Ala., during spring break.
 
Ellender said he and his friends dug a ditch around a square patch of sand and hollowed out holes in it for cups.
 
Jeremy Grass, a Baton Rouge resident, has been tailgating on campus for five years and has been using the same beer pong table for three.
 
The table, which Grass built with his friends, is painted purple with the eye of the tiger illustration from the field in Tiger Stadium, as many tables are. But Grass’s table has one feature most don’t — it can hold up to 75 cups at one time.
 
Grass said he and his friends hadn’t originally planned to make the table so wide, but used a large piece of plywood because it was available.
 
Grass said he doesn’t want to go back to a small table now that he has played on his table for so long.
 
“Those small ones, those are horrible,” Grass said.
 
So what’s next for the industrious roommates?
 
“We’re making another one next summer,” Aucoin said. “We’re thinking of building a stadium next.”
 
 
 
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Contact Rachel Warren at [email protected]