Engineering School Innovations: PitchPALS

Project Name: PitchPALS

Students: Ashley Herron, Henry Zhang, Jenny Sullivan, Pete Hoagland and Sharon Du

University: Rice University

Description

PitchPALS, Pitch Pressure Analysis and Logging System, is a baseball- training tool for grip analysis. It provides comprehensive data on a pitcher’s grip over the course of the entire throw. It collects information about the contact points between the hand and the ball as well as how much force is applied at each point. This data is synchronized with high- speed video data in a convenient user interface.

This data is collected through a replica baseball that has been tiled with force sensors on the outside. This is called the PitchPALS baseball. The PitchPALS baseball is to be thrown by the pitcher like an ordinary baseball. It actively records the force data from each sensor to provide the desired grip data. This data is displayed in a 3-D color map, giving the user an easy way to see the data.

There is also an accompanying motion capture video that records the motion of the entire body. The video is synchronized with the sensor data. Not only does this provide another source of data for grip analysis, but it also acts as a reference by correlating the sensor data to a specific point during the pitch.

Equipment

• National Instruments: Elvis II+; LabVIEW; Multisim; Ultiboard; DIAdem; and high-performance camera link frame grabber card PCI3-1433

• Solidworks (for modeling the baseball shell)

• FlexiForce piezo resistive sensors

• Texas Instruments’ 8-channel analog multiplexer/demultiplexer; 12-bit, 4-channel parallel output sampling analog-to-digital converter; Mixed signal microcontroller MSP430F5438; and dual 200mA output linear voltage regulator voltage regulator

• Rayson’s BTM-182 Bluetooth module

Watch video below to see the PitchPALS baseball in action and get an in depth look into its operation.