http://www.blackknight.ca/en/index.php click the RED hyper link "Video : Knight Trainer" Here is what it looks like.
Heeeey, it's Mike Beres! What a machine, that guy. Jealousy. Playing a court over from him in Toronto was like being in the presence of a god.
woah, he's fast. i'm assuming that thing can be angled upwards to perform lobs so we can practice smashing and drop shots as well?
Downside of this machine is that you need a long cable from the powersource to the court. Basically it is a good machine. Can save alot of work and its fun too..
ah, it's easy enough to get an extension cord. unless you mean that the wire will obstruct other people trying to move around, then that's true.
Looks fun, but kinda expensive. Also, I don't remember the last time I couldn't find somebody to hit with.
wow im gona ask my local black knight rep to let me try this out, lol i hope he thinks of getting one, could rent it out or something that would be great wouldnt need to bug someone to do some extra practices with me.
My club plans on buying two of these (the club shown here). From what i hear, the prototype goes for around 5 G's while once in production it should be around 3.5 G's. This thing can pretty much do the same stuff that a human feeder can, drives, drops at the net for you to tumble, deep high lefts etc etc.
3.5k Canadian dollars? wow, that's quite a lot, your club must be pretty rich. or is it sponsored/subsidised by some organisation?
wow, congrats! though, this brings up a question: why is a human feeder not competant? isn't feeding just as much part of training? (and 3.5G cheaper ) Human feeders have a lot more sense of humor as well I hope I get to try one eventually though
human's can't smash three times at you within one second!!!! well, neither can people in super intense games, but hell, who doesn't want to be ready to return three smashes when you don't have to worry anything more than two? consistency is mainly the priority i think, with these machines. its great to do drills with a couple buddies, but you gotta admit, nobody can perfectly tumble that shuttle back at you every time for an hour straight...
Nice and if the price is around $3500, it is affordable for clubs but definitely not for individuals. Just imagine a club like RichmondPro having one and you can actually book a court and rent the machine by the hour.
Yes it's the Atwater club and the head pro there is affiliated with Black Knight. It's not that a human feeder isn't competant enough, this just brings that much more consistency in whatever is being fed, though i must admit it does take quite a while to set up the whole thing, gotta pick up the 50 shuttles to put in that long tube to dispense, then you have to fire a few rounds, calibrate the angle, the power, etc etc. All in all i agree that human feeders are better, you get more of a dynamic training, but there are people who sometimes end up on court (like myself) at 11pm because of school schedules and whatnot and enjoy practicing some back hand clears or net tumbles just to get your mind off of stuff, don't really think this justifies spending that kind of money, but then again i'm not the one spending the cash. I do think the plan is to do something like Winex suggested where you pay by the hour but details have been very scarce.
Totally agree!!! It's also hard to find good feeders at that time of the hour . Most good feeders (coaches) are asleep already.
Just curious on something here...does this feeder need perfect shuttles to use? Can it just use semi-decent ones that can fly?
from what i gather from the BK site, decent, nylon, and feather shuttles all work alike... but inconsistent shuttles will be destroying the consistency aspect of this machine.
