measuring smash speed

Assuming you will not be buying and calibrating a radar gun of some variety, you will need:

tape measure, stop watch or good video camera, shuttle feeder.

good luck and have fun

 

Stop watch probably would be of no use due to speed of the shot, and all kinds of perceptual errors, e.g. when the contact is made on both the racket string bed, and on the floor.

Also, are you measuring initial speed, or speed at impact on floor, or average speed, since the shot continues to slow down?

In any case, if you'd like to have some fun, camcorder is the best bet, I'd think. Then you'd need to be able to upload onto your PC equipped with some video editing software that can dissect the video frame by frame. If the software gives you enough timing information, you can then derive the speed(s) you're interested.

Almost forgot to mention, some trigonometry is involved, as the shot is going downward. So you do need to measure the distance between you when you smash, and the landing point.

 

Most good club players can manage between 110- 120mph , Top league players can reach 130mph , county players to 140mph and international >140mph

Speed is not important, the precision of the smash , variation , steepness are far more vital .

There is no point in measuring the speed of the smash as it will only disappoint you ! lol

 

even with a speed gun , depending on the angle , placement etc . The speed measured can be varied , it is not that accurate .

Forget measuring the speed of your smash by changing strings and tensions , if it feels right, then go along with it . Every smash is different . You should concentrate more on improving technique , footwork rather than this nonsense .......that would what my coach would have said to me , lol

 

wow, say you change configuration every week, do 3 different tensions for 5 different strings... that's 15 weeks already.
In 15 weeks, that's enough time to significantly improve on your smash speed regardless of string.

Save your money for 15 restrings. Save your testing time for actual training/practice. You'll be a better player and a wealthier person.

 

would I be wrong to say that different kind of "swing" works differently (or works best) with different tension/racket stiffness. The swing that seems to "carry" the bird for slightly longer duration works best with less stiff racket. The quick snap swing....well...higher tension.

For your experiment, you will need about 3 identical rackets (low, med, high tension), and the same subject to perform the same smashing technique.

 

jw, how much does the speed gun used for intl/official matches cost?

 

I dont think the international players give a sh*t about this issue . They got more important things on their mind to improve their game , rather than testing out strings and tension to see which will show up quicker on a speed gun. They might measure their speed of smashes , once or twice in training but this are done by the analysis team with all the gadgets . Most time , they can feel , hear , and see how fast that smash is

 

You could ask other people's perception? I understand your question and where you want to get with it. I go by percentage unreturnable smashes, depending on who is defending them and whether I wind up for "this one isnt coming back". The actual speed in kmh or whatever is irrelevant, the odd few khm probably makes no odds but if you get enough of a speed boost that suddenly your smashes are too fast to return then that's relevant. I'm not sure your efforts in measuring the speed would show this if you work something out do share as I have thought the same thing myself.

 

The shuttle goes from very speedy to very slowly, measuring usually takes the initial speed, not the landing speed.

An academic article pointed out that national teams had been filled only with strong players of very high smashing speeds. Thus you question may be crucial.

The same article also pointed out that they tried out to track the wrist which may have better merits than "traditional" speed measurements. Yet, I'm not quite sure how the traditional measurements work, like seen on TV.

 

I smile when I see your post Tadashi.
Exactly what I was wondering about.

 

Did a school science project with my daughter last year; she needed to measure the number of spins of 3 different pinwheels under a constant air flow (using a fan). We recorded the experiments with a video camera with time clock on screen. Then count the number of spin from zero to 10 seconds in slow motion on a PC. It is definitely do-able with sport/high speed setting.

 

I think you would need to get one of the Casio Exlim cameras or something of that nature that can do more than 60fps. The smash is pretty much done in less than 1 second so you need to capture as many frames as possible, especially during contact.

You basically need a frame with the contact point and a few more after that (I would say about 2 or 3 more). 100mph is almost 147 feet per second. that meas that in 1 frame of a 60fps video the shuttle should travel 2.45 feet. However because you are decelerating you might travel less, say 2 feet. That only puts you at 82mph or so. So about 5 inches of error will drop you quite a few MPH. That's also assuming you can measure down to the inches as well.

I would think you need something 120fps or higher to do a good calculation. I think you need something that can record the moment of impact and maybe about 1 ft or so in front of it.

One tricky way to do it would be to take a still picture right after impact. If you know your shutter speed you can measure the size of the blur and determine distance traveled. Harder to get a good image thou. Maybe use sound activated shutter?

 

Just a quick idea of mine. How about using just a sound recorder? You will of course need to be in a quiet location for this to work, and have to place certain object as smash target to gauge the distance the birdie travels. If you were able to capture the sound of the birdie's initial contact with the racket and final contact with the target, you can measure the time elapsed and with distance calculated before hand, roughly calculate how fast your smash is.

This is by no mean accurate, but at least give you an idea and a simple project to experiment with. You probably just need a laptop with a mic, so need to have any camera setup of any kind.

 

interesting idea but not very realistic. you need a quiet place, but clubs are usually filled with noises. also, it involves acoustics of the place as well as what kind of string, string tension etc (i think). too many variables

I say we just steal those car speed measuring devices on the road that police depts put out lol