Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
42 Electronic Baseball Catcher
 Alex Villafuerte
Ivan Gallardo
Kermit Alexander
 Nicholas Ratajczyk final_paper0.pdf
other0.pdf
presentation0.pptx
Problem
Pitchers who wish to practice may not always have a catcher at their disposal and current devices are simple and lack the ability to train the pitcher effectively; for example, they require an entire bucket of balls.

Solution Overview
What we propose as a solution for this gap in available training equipment is a modified strike-zone stand that is able to use sensors, a microcontroller, and output display to gather information such as speed, location of pitch in strike zone, and count.

Solution Specifics
Sensor Subsystem
This subsystem will gather 2 metrics: ball speed, and position of ball in strike zone.
The speed will be determined by a radar system which will be built around the key components of a 24GHz K-band transceiver, a horn style antenna/wave-guide, and the requisite amplifiers and filters needed for getting useful information from the transceiver.
Position will be determined by a 3x3 grid of squares which will be attached to the back of the strike-zone by springs. Hall-effect sensors will be attached to these, which will detect when one of them moves (when a ball strikes that area).

Processing Subsystem
Consists of a microcontroller and memory unit. The processing subsystem will process reading from the sensor subsystem to determine the location of the baseball’s impact on the strike zone and the readings from the radar sensor to determine ball’s speed.

Display Subsystem
Consists of an LED array to display various reading/measurements processed by the microcontroller, specifically, pitch speed and location.

Power Subsystem
Strike-zone will be able to be plugged into an ordinary outlet at home.


Web Discussion
https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=27587

Partners:
Kermit Alexander (kfa2)
Ivan Gallardo (igalla3)
Alex Villafuerte (avilla54)

Wireless IntraNetwork

Daniel Gardner, Jeeth Suresh

Wireless IntraNetwork

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