Related papers: The mechanics of the squash nick shot
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 introduce a compact probabilistic model for two-player and two-team (four-player) squash matches, along with a practical skill-comparison rule derived from point-scoring probabilities. Using recorded shot types and court locations, we…
Fitts' law has been widely employed as a research method for analyzing tasks within the domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). However, its application to non-computer tasks has remained limited. This study aims to extend the…
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…
A small and light polystyrene ball is released without initial speed from a certain height above the floor. Then, it falls on air. The main responsible for the friction force against the movement is the wake of successive air vortices which…
In competitive sports it is often very hard to quantify the performance. A player to score or overtake may depend on only millesimal of seconds or millimeters. In racquet sports like tennis, table tennis and squash many events will occur in…
The game of Knockout is a classic playground game played with two basketballs. This paper uses a Markov process to analyze each player's probability of winning the game given their starting position in line and shooting percentages,…
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 report an emergence of bifurcation in basketball, a single-particle system governed by Newtonian mechanics. When shooting the basketball, the obvious control parameters are the launch speed and the launch angle. We propose to use the…
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.…
The motion of a stone skimming over a water surface is considered. A simplified description of the collisional process of the stone with water is proposed. The maximum number of bounces is estimated by considering both the slowing down of…
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…
Control of a hybrid dynamical system can manifest in one of two main ways: either through the continuous or the discrete dynamics. An example of controls influencing the continuous dynamics is legged locomotion, where the joints are…
We consider the withdrawal of a ball from a fluid reservoir to understand the longevity of the connection between that ball and the fluid it breaks away from, at intermediate Reynolds numbers. Scaling arguments based on the processes…
The bottle-flip challenge -- the upright landing of a partially filled bottle after tossing and flipping it in the air -- unexpectedly became a viral mechanics exercise. Through high-speed visualization, we evidence that fluid content…
On the surface of a vibrating liquid bath, instead of coalescing, a drop will continually bounce on a thin film of air between the drop and the free surface, giving rise to rich chaotic dynamics and quantum analog behavior. However,…
Several scenarios used in teaching feature a rolling motion with slipping that transitions to one without through friction with the ground. We summarise these transitions by introducing an unknown impulse that is transferred to the ground.…
Experiments are done by colliding a swinging bat with a stationary baseball or softball. Each collision was recorded with high-speed cameras, from which the post-impact speed, launch angle, and spin of the ball could be determined. Initial…
We consider a mechanical system consisting of an infinite rod (a straight line) and a ball (a massless point) on the plane. The rod rotates uniformly around one of its points. The ball is reflected elastically when colliding with the rod…
Snap-buckling is a rapid shape transition in slender structures, appearing as a fundamental switching mechanism of natural and man-made systems. Boundary conditions of structures are crucial to predict and control their snap-buckling…