Essay On Table Tennis
Does cleaning a table tennis racket and keeping it in a case preserve its power and spin?
Introduction:
Spin plays a large part in most, if not all, ball sports. In no sport is the Magnus Effect more conspicuous than in the sport of table tennis. The small, light ball can spin up to 150 revolutions per second in a match situation. (Qun, et al., 1992) This is due largely to technique, but the level of spin has greatly improved since the 1950’s, due to the invent of “sandwich rubber”, or “Inverted rubber” (see Figure 1), as opposed to the old pimpled rubbers (Figure 2). This greatly increased surface area and spin changed the sport and history, as players now looked to optimise the spin of their rackets. After years of playing with glues to …show more content…
When the ball makes contact with the racket, the ball grips to the racket. This means a certain point of the ball stops, as the ball begins to turn away from the racket, as the ball naturally keeps spinning (due to inertia). Because this ball has gripped, the angle of reflection changes, becoming what is known as the throw angle.
Hypothesis:
Cleaning a table tennis racket and keeping it in a case will significantly preserve its playing characteristics (power and spin). Leaving a racket in the sun will severely decrease both spin and power.
Risk Assessment:
There are no particularly dangerous items used in this experiment, but table tennis balls will be launched at high speeds, so common sense around the equipment is required to prevent injuries caused by slipping on table tennis balls or similar injuries.
Apparatus:
5 Regail brand table tennis rackets were used as tested rubber surfaces.
3 star (top quality) ITTF Approved Double Fish table tennis balls were shot at the rackets. 1 Double Fish Ball-Launching Table Tennis Robot fired the balls towards the racket with topspin.
1 Casio camera (capable of filming at 240fps) was used in recording the
Introduction:
Spin plays a large part in most, if not all, ball sports. In no sport is the Magnus Effect more conspicuous than in the sport of table tennis. The small, light ball can spin up to 150 revolutions per second in a match situation. (Qun, et al., 1992) This is due largely to technique, but the level of spin has greatly improved since the 1950’s, due to the invent of “sandwich rubber”, or “Inverted rubber” (see Figure 1), as opposed to the old pimpled rubbers (Figure 2). This greatly increased surface area and spin changed the sport and history, as players now looked to optimise the spin of their rackets. After years of playing with glues to …show more content…
When the ball makes contact with the racket, the ball grips to the racket. This means a certain point of the ball stops, as the ball begins to turn away from the racket, as the ball naturally keeps spinning (due to inertia). Because this ball has gripped, the angle of reflection changes, becoming what is known as the throw angle.
Hypothesis:
Cleaning a table tennis racket and keeping it in a case will significantly preserve its playing characteristics (power and spin). Leaving a racket in the sun will severely decrease both spin and power.
Risk Assessment:
There are no particularly dangerous items used in this experiment, but table tennis balls will be launched at high speeds, so common sense around the equipment is required to prevent injuries caused by slipping on table tennis balls or similar injuries.
Apparatus:
5 Regail brand table tennis rackets were used as tested rubber surfaces.
3 star (top quality) ITTF Approved Double Fish table tennis balls were shot at the rackets. 1 Double Fish Ball-Launching Table Tennis Robot fired the balls towards the racket with topspin.
1 Casio camera (capable of filming at 240fps) was used in recording the