In a market full of tennis ball machines of every shape and size, we set out with a pretty big goal: build a machine that’s genuinely portable without giving up power, stability, or usability.
It sounded simple at first. It wasn’t.
But that journey has now been recognized globally — Tenniix has won the prestigious IDEA Award, one of the highest honors in industrial design.

Here’s the story behind how it happened.

Portability vs. Performance: The Classic Problem

Anyone who has used a traditional ball machine knows the trade-off.

• The big ones fire faster and hold more balls — but many weigh well over 20kg. Lugging them up stairs or across a parking lot isn’t fun.

• The small ones are easier to move, but the moment you want power or consistency, you start to feel the limitations.

We kept coming back to one question:
Is it possible to get both?

That question became the starting point of the Tenniix design philosophy.

Designing for Real Places — Not Hypothetical Ones

Courts aren’t all the same.
Some are far from the parking lot. Some sit on hills. Some require you to walk a long way or climb steps. Many players — especially those practicing alone — move the machine by themselves.

After a lot of field visits, countless user interviews, and many sweaty test sessions, one thing became obvious:

Portability isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s essential.

So we studied every small detail:
how players carry the machine, where their hands naturally go, how it rolls, how it feels when lifted off the ground, how it fits in a car trunk. Nothing was left to chance.

A Compact Form That Took a Lot of Work

When the first prototyped unit was finally assembled, the design team had the same reaction:
“It looks small. It looks balanced. It just… works.”

But getting there was the opposite of simple — especially while trying to fit 100 tennis balls inside a compact body.

We experimented with materials and internal layouts again and again until an idea finally clicked: a two-layer folding panel system.
Industrial designers and structural engineers iterated together until the mechanism felt seamless.

This single breakthrough let us keep the clean, compact silhouette while still delivering high capacity — without weird attachments or bulky add-ons.

Designing the Experience, Not Just the Shape

Power and consistency matter, of course. But the experience of using the machine matters just as much.

Players told us repeatedly that machines with only 50–80 balls break the momentum of practice. We felt it ourselves. So we pushed capacity higher and refined the overall interaction:

• The ergonomics of the rear handle

• How the machine is lifted and carried

• How it moves from home to the court

• How smoothly the collector folds and unfolds

• How each part feels in the hand

These details went through dozens of small improvements — tiny adjustments that, together, make a big difference.

A Quiet Visual Language With a Confident Touch

We intentionally kept the overall palette calm and low-saturation.
In early tests, everything looked clean… almost too clean. That’s when the team tried adding a subtle color accent to the rear handle.

What started as a small experiment suddenly gave the machine character — a confident but understated highlight. It ended up becoming one of the visual signatures we love most.

What the IDEA Award Means to Us

Receiving the IDEA Award is an incredible honor, but for the team, it means something more:
proof that user-first design, thoughtful engineering, and real-world problem solving can come together in something truly meaningful.

We’re proud to be recognized — and even prouder that this design now lives in the hands of real players, helping them train more freely, more confidently, and with a machine that’s built around their needs.

Tenniix started as a simple question.
The award is nice, but the real reward is seeing the machine on the court, doing exactly what it was designed to do.