Related papers: Oblique Collisions of Baseballs and Softballs with…
A ball can be hit faster if it is projected without spin but it can be hit farther if it is projected with backspin. Measurements are presented in this paper of the tradeoff between speed and spin for a baseball impacting a baseball bat.…
New measurements are presented of the lift on a spinning baseball. The experiment utilizes a pitching machine to project the baseball horizontally; a high-speed motion capture system to measure the initial velocity and angular velocity and…
The problem of the mechanical evolution of a shock between a cylindrically symmetric bat and a spherical ball is solved in the strict rigid approximation for arbitrary values of the initial conditions. The friction during the impact is…
This study focuses on the rotation of the hips and shoulders during a baseball bat swing, analyzing the time-series changes in rotational angles, rotational velocities, and axes using marker position data obtained from a motion capture…
In 2024, Major League Baseball released new bat tracking data, reporting swing-by-swing bat speed and swing length measured at the point of contact. While exciting, the data present challenges for their interpretation. The timing of the…
Inspired by the turf-ball interaction in golf, this paper seeks to understand the bounce of a ball that can be modelled as a rigid sphere and the surface as supplying an elasto-plastic contact force in addition to Coulomb friction. A…
A detailed set of experiments are described that capture over a 1000 different instances of the bounce of a golf ball. Video analysis is used to capture velocity and spin immediately prior to and subsequent to each bounce for a wide variety…
A ball rolled over a shallow step will experience an increase in velocity along the direction perpendicular to the step. This causes a deflection in the ball's trajectory. In this paper we derive the equations that describe the motion of a…
If a tennis ball is held above a basket ball with their centers vertically aligned, and the balls are released to collide with the floor, the tennis ball may rebound at a surprisingly high speed. We show in this article that the simple…
When a ball hits a surface, does the angle of reflection always equal the angle of incidence? Not at all! Depending on the interplay of the ball's spin and speed and the force of friction, the ball's behavior after the bounce may differ…
We study the collision between the cue and the ball in the game of billiards. After studying the collision process in detail, we write the (rotational) velocities of the ball and the cue after the collision. We also find the squirt angle of…
We introduce a three-step framework to determine at which pitches Major League batters should swing. Unlike traditional plate discipline metrics, which implicitly assume that all batters should always swing at (resp. take) pitches inside…
The baseball game is often seen as many contests that are performed between individuals. The duel between the pitcher and the batter, for example, is considered the engine that drives the sport. The pitchers use a variety of strategies to…
This paper presents an offset-free model predictive controller for fast and accurate control of a spherical soft robotic arm. In this control scheme, a linear model is combined with an online disturbance estimation technique to…
When a falling ball chain strikes a surface, a tension is created that pulls the chain downward. This causes a downward acceleration that is larger than free-fall, which has been observed by recent experiments. Here a theoretical…
We analyze the impact of two equal billiard balls in three ideal situations: when the balls freely slide on the plane of the billiard, when they roll without sliding and when one of them freely slides and the other rolls. In all the cases…
The knuckleball is perhaps the most enigmatic pitch in baseball. Relying on the presence of raised seams on the surface of the ball to create asymmetric flow, a knuckleball's trajectory has proven very challenging to predict compared to…
We study the collision dynamics of a spinning cue ball approaching a static object ball with equal mass on a plane, common in billiards. While typical collisions in billiards are nearly perfectly elastic, with a restitution coefficient…
When a droplet gently lands on an atomically smooth substrate, it will most likely contact the underlying surface in about 0.1 s. However, theoretical estimation from fluid mechanics predicts a contact time of 10 to 100 s. What causes this…
Tracking the ball is critical for video-based analysis of team sports. However, it is difficult, especially in low-resolution images, due to the small size of the ball, its speed that creates motion blur, and its often being occluded by…