How The ICA System Works

This is a brief outline of how the ICA System Works, and my initial thoughts before I took the plunge and made the purchase.

When I came across the Illuminated Cueing Arts system, my initial reaction was, yikes that'll be expensive.

However when you actually sit down and think about the work on the back end, by the ICA team, with programming and creation of all the pattern layouts and drills, I would say that the costing is pretty fair.

I have seen another system that costs less, but in all honesty, it isn't as in-depth as the ICA system, it doesn't have the extra modules created especially to coincide with E-Books and Videos that can be purchased from some of the top ex-tournament players who know dedicate their lives to teaching others, Tor Lowery @ Zero-X Billiards is one of them.

I tend to really research something before I go ahead and buy. I read through every document and page on the ICA website, watched all the videos, did some searching across the net and basically kept coming back to ICA.

I have mentioned on My Practice Methods with ICA Training how much of a pain it is setting up drills and complicated layouts using those hole punch reinforcement labels, and it really is, I sometimes still do this, if I want to prolong the life of the projector light bulb. I'll go more into that one a dedicated post about my projector and how I mounted it.

So I sent ICA an email with a few tech questions, okay I know geeky or what. My main concern was, would it work on a 6ft table, as the system is currently set for 7-9ft tables. The response I got was so positive that I was ready to part with my hard earned money, during the COVID-19 lockdown, and yes I had no other income, so this was basically taking any chance of food of my table. ;-)

In a nutshell, yes it's a bit expensive at first, but oh boy is it well worth the money!!!

Support from ICA before, during and after set up, was and still is absolutely amazing. Telephone calls during normal USA business hours, and any emails I sent was replied to within hours regardless of the time difference, obviously I wouldn't expect a reply that soon if it was in the middle of the night in the US, as they would be asleep. Fortunately I am geeky and I didn't need, or I'd like to think I didn't need that much help, but knowing how they work, for me was a massive bonus too, I doubt I would be writing this article and a few more to follow, if I wasn't impressed by the product and support. During the current situation, I like to try and give little back to those that make things a bit easier for me.

So how does the system work?

Basically you have a Raspberry Pi that is connected to a projector that is aimed at your pool table.

I will go into how to set the system up in another post, and hopefully there maybe a video too.