This link offers a lot of information about the location of the sweet spot on a baseball bat. This research was done by Daniel A. Russell, Ph.D. at Penn State University studying the acoustics of baseball and softball bats. The group used his findings in the research phase of the project to gain a better understanding of the physics and geometry of a baseball bat.
When we were determining a way of finding the sweet spot of a baseball bat, we did a great deal of research to find an easy and consistent way to do the testing. There seemed to be two ways to do this. The first featured the bat hanging vertically, pivoted at the handle. The bat was hit with a constant force at a known point and the vibrations at the handle were measured. The point of least vibrations is the sweet spot. The second method featured the bat held horizontally on rubber bands so it was free to move vertically. Again, the bat was hit with a constant force and the vibrations in the handle were measured. We chose to use a variation of the first method.
This is how we intend to make our final product. The Drexel University on campus Machine Shop features a Haas CNC lathe similar to the one in the video where we will be making our bats.
We also need to identify a way to make our bats unique to us. That may be by creating a logo and making stickers of that image, CNC milling the design onto the bat, or using a laser engraver (video). The Drexel Universiry Machine Shop has a laser engraver but unfortunately it is too small for our bats to fit inside the machine.
We will be using an Arduino Uno as the data acquisition device for our accelerometer. The acclerometer will be attached to the bat on the handle and will be measuring the vibrations of the bat after it is hit with the ball in the test rig. The Arduino is the "middle man" between the accelerometer and the computer running the code that allows the computer to record the accelerometer readings.
Part of our testing rig had to be 3D printed. We were able to do this on campus in the 3D printer in the lab on the 6th floor of Bossone. Our print job took over 6 hours to complete. The video shows an example of 3D printing.
When we were determining a way of finding the sweet spot of a baseball bat, we did a great deal of research to find an easy and consistent way to do the testing. There seemed to be two ways to do this. The first featured the bat hanging vertically, pivoted at the handle. The bat was hit with a constant force at a known point and the vibrations at the handle were measured. The point of least vibrations is the sweet spot. The second method featured the bat held horizontally on rubber bands so it was free to move vertically. Again, the bat was hit with a constant force and the vibrations in the handle were measured. We chose to use a variation of the first method.
We will be using an Arduino Uno as the data acquisition device for our accelerometer. The acclerometer will be attached to the bat on the handle and will be measuring the vibrations of the bat after it is hit with the ball in the test rig. The Arduino is the "middle man" between the accelerometer and the computer running the code that allows the computer to record the accelerometer readings.
