3 ms·

Wooden bowling arm that bested Australian cricketer in 1909 rebuilt

lmpdev 2y ago
As a (bad) amateur leg spinner: this is much cooler than just a projectile launcher! It’s putting extremely high spin on the ball at a slow pace (for American readers think a curveball on steroids) Replicating this as a human is extremely difficult: consistently world class leg and off spinners are rare Hats off to Dr Venn!
- kitd 2y ago
  I imagine half the problem is that, at 33mph, the arm has to be so close to you as to make reading any ball flight nearly impossible. So I'm not sure how representative of a human bowler it would be (world class spin at dolly-hop pace!) Cool project though
  - lmpdev 2y ago
    Oh it would be almost impossible with a pitch that short Would be a pretty useful training aid at ball flight reading if it’s even possible to vary the spin and speed slightly
  - Someone 2y ago
    Also, I think it’s possible that top cricket players partly infer the ball’s trajectory before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand. With such a machine, the cues used to do that aren’t available. https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-kinematics-of-the-return-of-serve-in-tennis-the-role-of-anticipatory-information/ https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-kinematics-of-the-re...: “In 2007, Renshaw et al. (18) showed differences in the initiation times of back swing in cricket, back swing and downswing duration while facing the bowler and the ball machine.”
    - animal531 2y ago
      When we were kids we played a game called King where you try to hit your friends with a tennis ball. I was terrible at throwing with my skinny arms but very good at dodging, mostly by having learned to watch first the throwing arm trajectory which gives you a plane in 3d space of where the ball can possible go. Secondly you watch where in the arc the ball leaves the hand which turns that plane into hopefully a line or a triangle which you then try to avoid. Bowling adds more variables on top such as holding the ball in a certain way to make it curve, although with cricket vs baseball it's more about how you're going to make the ball bounce instead of trying to curve it in the air (if we're talking about spinners that is).
stavros 2y ago
> All they had to work from was a black-and-white photograph of the 7ft contraption and a patent application from the time. So, all they had to work from was a black-and-white photograph and a detailed breakdown of how exactly the machine was built and worked? EDIT: TFA mentions later on that it was an IP patent, with no engineering drawings, that makes more sense.
ColinWright 2y ago
(Re-)built by a friend of mine, Prof Hugh Hunt. He also did a recreation of the Bouncing Bomb, and the Colditz Glider. He's also a lovely man, and has done some brilliant engineering videos, some with Matt Parker.

As a (bad) amateur leg spinner: this is much cooler than just a projectile launcher! It’s putting extremely high spin on the ball at a slow pace (for American readers think a curveball on steroids) Replicating this as a human is extremely difficult: consistently world class leg and off spinners are rare Hats off to Dr Venn!

kitd 2y ago
I imagine half the problem is that, at 33mph, the arm has to be so close to you as to make reading any ball flight nearly impossible. So I'm not sure how representative of a human bowler it would be (world class spin at dolly-hop pace!) Cool project though
- lmpdev 2y ago
  Oh it would be almost impossible with a pitch that short Would be a pretty useful training aid at ball flight reading if it’s even possible to vary the spin and speed slightly
- Someone 2y ago
  Also, I think it’s possible that top cricket players partly infer the ball’s trajectory before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand. With such a machine, the cues used to do that aren’t available. https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-kinematics-of-the-return-of-serve-in-tennis-the-role-of-anticipatory-information/ https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-kinematics-of-the-re...: “In 2007, Renshaw et al. (18) showed differences in the initiation times of back swing in cricket, back swing and downswing duration while facing the bowler and the ball machine.”
  - animal531 2y ago
    When we were kids we played a game called King where you try to hit your friends with a tennis ball. I was terrible at throwing with my skinny arms but very good at dodging, mostly by having learned to watch first the throwing arm trajectory which gives you a plane in 3d space of where the ball can possible go. Secondly you watch where in the arc the ball leaves the hand which turns that plane into hopefully a line or a triangle which you then try to avoid. Bowling adds more variables on top such as holding the ball in a certain way to make it curve, although with cricket vs baseball it's more about how you're going to make the ball bounce instead of trying to curve it in the air (if we're talking about spinners that is).

stavros 2y ago

> All they had to work from was a black-and-white photograph of the 7ft contraption and a patent application from the time. So, all they had to work from was a black-and-white photograph and a detailed breakdown of how exactly the machine was built and worked? EDIT: TFA mentions later on that it was an IP patent, with no engineering drawings, that makes more sense.

ColinWright 2y ago

(Re-)built by a friend of mine, Prof Hugh Hunt. He also did a recreation of the Bouncing Bomb, and the Colditz Glider. He's also a lovely man, and has done some brilliant engineering videos, some with Matt Parker.