Smash Speed measurements

Discussion in 'General Forum' started by likeahcild, Apr 11, 2007.

  1. likeahcild

    likeahcild New Member

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    how would you measure someone's smash speed?
    is there special equipment needed?
     
  2. Zero_Cool

    Zero_Cool Regular Member

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    must be something like the speed camera cathing car doing over the speed limit
     
  3. likeahcild

    likeahcild New Member

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    yeah I was thinking a high speed camera to calculate speed by measuring distance traveled between frames.
    but I thought a camera is too uncommon because its fragile and difficult to move around.
    anybody know if this is how people commonly measure smash speed?
     
  4. SystemicAnomaly

    SystemicAnomaly Regular Member

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    The use of a high-speed camera is one way to measure the speed of projectiles (balls, shuttles, pucks, etc) in sports. Radar guns are commonly used in tennis, baseball & auto racing. These guns use RF signals (often microwave frequencies) using the Doppler effect to calculate speed. The radar guns used for sports are similar to those used by law enforcement to measure speeding vehicles. The various sports models usually have different speed ranges.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_gun

    www.opticsplanet.net/radar-guns.html

    www.stalkerradar.com/sports_sport.shtml
     
  5. SystemicAnomaly

    SystemicAnomaly Regular Member

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  6. bad_fanatic

    bad_fanatic Regular Member

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    The last time that I read about capturing the speed of a shuttle was using microwave. What they did was set up devices in the different areas surrounding the court. The device send microwave into the atmosphere and records the shuttle at it's highest velocity.

    As for how the microwaves sends and captures the speed, I have no idea. Calculus and Physics was to hard so I gave up being an engineer. LOL

    But that's what I read when they first introduce speed recording in badminton.
     
  7. Shifty

    Shifty Regular Member

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    isn't the speed for recorded smashes by BWF only at the very start, at it's fastest?

    for the radar gun thingy, itd be really hard to aim it at the shuttle wouldn't it, cos it's so small?
     
  8. RimHitter

    RimHitter Regular Member

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    if you know of anyone into shooting sports ie trap/archery,they will have accsess to a chronograph, the only thing is that you will have smash over a couple of gates and will only read the "muzzle" and only what you put into it, a smash is much faster from a bird comming in than just hitting of hand.
     
  9. morewood

    morewood Regular Member

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    Radar gun would have to be precisley operated to get a clear reading as a feather is a small target traveling very fast, a high speed video/DV camera would be easier to use in my opinion.
     
  10. jerby

    jerby Regular Member

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    we have a "speedometer" at the club (though rarely used..)
    it's not really like the high-pricers of the BWF...you ahev to set it, ín the court...and aim for it :(
    it is a radar principle though....but it's accuracy is doubtfull (a tennisplayers served on a high-pricer and ours: ours read 20km/h slower...

    what does the average highs-speed camera cost?
    and won't the distance calculation be quite though without a giant ruler behind it?
     
  11. cooler

    cooler Regular Member

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    an accurate method is by strobe lighting photography.
     
  12. SystemicAnomaly

    SystemicAnomaly Regular Member

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    Strobe light training

    Wow, strobe lights! I've actually hit shuttles and tennis balls using a strobe light as the primary illumination. This is quite a challenge since you get much less visual information than normal -- really have to concentrate to predict the trajectory of the ball/shuttle. Altho' this is a beneficial exercise, too much of it can literally give you a headache.

    But this is probably not what cooler meant by strobe lighting photography.
     
  13. hiroisuke

    hiroisuke Regular Member

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    It's really quite simple. Do so in a few, easy steps:

    1) Go to the game.

    2) Sit very close to the game.

    3) Right before someone is about to smash, pay attention and focus.

    4) At the very moment they smash, start counting (perhaps with the help of a stopwatch).

    5) Stop counting when the smash hits the ground.

    6) Use a measuring tape (without obstructing the game) and measure the distance from the smasher to the location where the smash hit.

    7) Simply convert from feet/sec to mph or kph!


    LOLZ! THat would be hilarious if we could just do it like that. We'd have to learn to see about 10 times faster and count superfast! Anyways, in all SERIOUSNESS, I truly am not sure how they really do measure the speed of a smash. Probably a radar gun.
     
  14. SystemicAnomaly

    SystemicAnomaly Regular Member

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    hiroisuke's tongue-in-cheek method (amusingly described above) would yield the average speed of the smash for its entire flight. The speed that is normally quoted for smash velocites is actually the top speed -- the fastest instantaneous speed that shuttle experiences before it begins to decelerate. In reality, a shuttle hit from the backcourt probably already has lost more than half its inital velocity by the time it crosses the net.

    Radar guns, employing the doppler effect, are used to measure tennis serves, baseball pitches, 200 MPH race cars and many other sports applications. Not sure why this would not be suitable for badminton as well. Last time that I checked, the top end sports radar guns were capable of measurements up to 250 MPH (sorry, metric world. dont kno the conversion off the top of my head). Compare this to the world record badminton smashes that are just a bit over 206 MPH.

    I may be wrong, but I believe that the microwave detectors that ppl speak of are actually radar guns (which often, if not always, uses microwave frequencies).
     
  15. SystemicAnomaly

    SystemicAnomaly Regular Member

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    This is what radar guns do. They transmit & receive microwave freqs.

    A skirt of a badminton shuttle is nearly the same size as the diameter of a tennis ball. Granted, the smashed shuttle can attain velocities that are 30-35% faster than a tennis ball that is served or smashed.

    Note that a radar gun does not measure the speed of a ball or shuttle from a position on either side of the court. You would get no doppler shift if you employ a radar gun perpendicular to its flight. The radar gun is mounted behind the opposite end of a tennis court to measure serve speeds. This puts the gun about 40 yard (35+ meters) from the server.

    At this distance, the gun points in the general vicinity of the server. It does not need to be "dead on" (not directly pointing at the contact point) in order to make an accurate reading. These guns are able to calculate velocities accurately even when the offset angle changes.

    The Stalker Sport gun (see link in a prev post) is capable of distances several times greater than 40 yards. It is capable of measurements up to 250 MPH (400 KPH) with a Target Acquisition Time of 0.046 seconds. It is spec'd at an accuracy of +/- 0.1 MPH.

    While there may be other technologies avaible for measuring shuttle velocities, it appears that modern radar guns are up to the task for badminton (as long as you keep your smashes under 250 MPH).
     
  16. cooler

    cooler Regular Member

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    nope, u got confused with disco strobe lighting:p
    the proper term is high speed photography and is the most accurate method.

    radar gun is ok if u have ideal condition and /or happy with certain range of error in measurement. Advantage of radar gun is that it's quick and cheap, like a digital camera, u can take alot of shots (or readings) and throw out 80% of them that u think it's not good:p

    there was a link in BF somewhere that showed a swedish site that did measured shuttlecock smash speed using strobe lighting photography.

    if u have doubt of high speed photography, below is a freeze frame shot of a nuclear detonaton. Try using a radar gun on that:p
     

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  17. Shifty

    Shifty Regular Member

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    whaoooooo. cool! so that's how they look. almost like bacteria!
     
  18. Pete LSD

    Pete LSD Regular Member

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    Cooler, is that the first fission explosion in New Meixco?
     
  19. ViningWolff

    ViningWolff Regular Member

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    they had a new type of system at the "radar" at the worlds measuring smash speed. I beleive it to be a variation of the genesis radar system used by some police forces.
     
  20. SystemicAnomaly

    SystemicAnomaly Regular Member

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    nope, wuznt confused at all.. just grabbed the opportunity to mention a tangential topic. didnt mean to imply that it had anything to do w/ the method you mentioned.

    so, you don't think that the specs claimed by the Sport gun I mentioned are accurate enuff?

    ...
     
    #20 SystemicAnomaly, Apr 23, 2007
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2007

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