51–60 of 172 posts
The first 10 seconds pretty much covers the subject. It's not the hoop, it's the shape of the backboard, which is a reflector formed to focus the ball on the target. Now, the really cool thing would to build a flat backboard with controlled bounce properties. Interesting 3D printing problem. That would look like an ordinary backboard but still focus bounces.
That was a pretty cool video! I loved how he used 3D Monte-Carlo and side-stepped all the complicated math. I wonder if he was using a Physics engine like Bullet or ODE to calculate the simulated trajectories. Also, a good intermediate step might've been to build the backboard in something like Unity and shoot some hoops to catch the radius error before actually machining it out.
Probably not, the trajectories are simple parabolic and you can assume perfect elastic collision. Easy enough to implement, compared to interfacing with a physics engine. In fact, it sounded like he approximated the ball by a point and ignored the radius.
Is this not something that just an optics equation in Physics would give you? Specially if not taking the radius of the ball into effect.
The first 10 seconds pretty much covers the subject. It's not the hoop, it's the shape of the backboard, which is a reflector formed to focus the ball on the target. Now, the really cool thing would to build a flat backboard with controlled bounce properties. Interesting 3D printing problem. That would look like an ordinary backboard but still focus bounces.
Another idea would be a hoop controlled by servos that always moves the hoop where the ball is going.
Clearly the hoop that minimizes shots is what exists at funfairs all over the world. Would making the backboard convex make it near-impossible to hit? What about making the curve imperceptible so it's hard to notice it's helping/hurting?
Dart Board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHTizZ_XcUM
Rigged Carnival Games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_ZlWJ3qJI
(Bonus, in the theme of sports equipment that wins for you) Auto bowling ball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM5NHC97JBw
Any physics experts know what the actual optimal shape is? I imagine it would be a pretty gnarly problem to work out.
If you fix the position of the 'thrower' and just throw them at ridiculous speeds so gravity doesn't matter you'd end up with a hyperbolic backboard. So annoyingly for an 'optimal' solution you'd need to specify where people can throw from and how fast. Frankly you might as well just use a hyperbola with one foci on the hoop and the other on the middle of the court, or maybe a point slightly higher than the court its…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun story. I was in college taking differential equations. And I was faithfully attempting to apply what I'd learned in class, and having a somewhat hard time at it (this was before I realized how useful matlab was). When I was doing some research on the side, and I learned that the vast majority of differential equations are unsolvable, you can only approximate an answer. After that, I was thouroughly annoyed at was…
This should be solvable without differential equations, since it is basically a parabolic antenna with an off-axis feed.
Is this not something that just an optics equation in Physics would give you? Specially if not taking the radius of the ball into effect.
a ball has mass, radius, and a variable velocity
The first 10 seconds pretty much covers the subject. It's not the hoop, it's the shape of the backboard, which is a reflector formed to focus the ball on the target. Now, the really cool thing would to build a flat backboard with controlled bounce properties. Interesting 3D printing problem. That would look like an ordinary backboard but still focus bounces.
Another idea would be a hoop controlled by servos that always moves the hoop where the ball is going.