Tennis Targets

April 29, 2010 6:21 AM

What can I use for a "smart" tennis target?

I'm looking for some kind of mat that I can place on the tennis court as a target. Simple rubber discs are readily available but I'd like to find something more sophisticated.

Better would be a mat made of a material that leaves a clear mark where the ball hits, like a clay court.

Even better would be some kind of electronic, pressure-sensitive pad that can transmit data to a computer sitting off to the side.

Any ideas? Thanks.

posted by iconjack to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total)

maybe a sheet of carbon paper?
posted by ghharr at 6:50 AM on April 29, 2010

I don't think you'd get very good results on a pressure sensitive pad. You could make some sort of easy to place gridded mat and have a decent video camera record it and then analyze that.
posted by advicepig at 7:43 AM on April 29, 2010

Well if money was no object, you could implement Hawk-Eye.
posted by mmascolino at 10:05 AM on April 29, 2010

Get a tray. Fill it with a layer of sand. Smooth the sand over before use. Keep a hand broom about to clean up any spillage.
posted by Atreides at 10:51 AM on April 29, 2010

Best answer: Look into how Dance Dance Revolution soft pads are constructed: they use two strips of flexible conductive material separated by a thin compressible foam to form a very simple switch, IIRC. From there, an Arduino could convert the switches to serial input for a computer. You won't get high precision location or any information on force, but assuming you just want to localize to within a square foot or so, you could do it this way.
posted by Alterscape at 12:36 PM on April 29, 2010