ANGLE OF ROTATION XPROJECT
A Major League Baseball team wanted a more accurate way to measure the angle of a player’s thoracic spine rotation compared to their current method, which involves standing above a player with a 60-inch-long pole in their arms while they twist their shoulders and torso.
INITIAL RESEARCH AND DESIGN
After initial research, we knew we wanted to use camera vision and a Raspberry Pi to calculate the angles of rotation. On the team of three, I was tasked with designing the hardware to mount the camera and Raspberry Pi above the players.
Following our initial conversation, our clients said we couldn’t mount the camera to the ceiling, so I designed for a pole mount that would hold the camera over the players. I used standoffs and threaded inserts to secure the camera and Raspberry Pi to the mount, to secure the top to the bottom, and the attach the whole mount to the pole.
ITERATION ON DESIGN
However, after another meeting, our clients changed their minds, and did want to mount the camera to the ceiling, calling for a redesign of the mount. I looked into the design of smoke detectors, and decided to use two parts to make it easy to install or remove.
The top is mounted to a ceiling tile, and the camera and Raspberry Pi are mounted to the bottom, which uses a twist and lock mechanism to connect to the top. It also has an indented line and arrow to indicate the direction it should be installed with respect to the direction the sitting player is facing. The assembly also has a hole for the wires to extend from the Raspberry Pi to a power source and the user interface screen.
This model went through a few iterations, but the second version that I fully fabricated through 3D printing and installation of threaded inserts was satisfactory for the functionality of the assembly.
