Systems and methods for determining whether a ball is present in a staging area of a ball-throwing machine

A ball-throwing machine comprising:

• one or more launch wheels configured to impart motion to one or more balls;
• a frame to which the one or more launch wheels couple, wherein a staging area is formed within the frame adjacent the one or more launch wheels;
• a ball-sensor configured to detect when a first ball of the one or more balls is present within the staging area;
• a solenoid;
• a ball-stop coupled with the solenoid, wherein actuation of the solenoid adjusts a positioning of the ball-stop thereby enabling or preventing the first ball to exit the staging area for launching by the one or more launch wheels;
• and
• a control circuit configured to control the one or more launch wheels, wherein the control circuit includes a processor, and non-transitory, computer-readable medium having logic stored thereon that, when executed by the processor, cause performance of operations including:
• receiving ball-sensor data from the ball-sensor indicative of whether the first ball is present within the staging area,
• determining whether the first ball is present within the staging area based on the ball-sensor data, and
• subsequent to determining that the first ball is not present within the staging area, actuating the solenoid thereby causing vibration of the ball-throwing machine to cause the first ball to fall into the staging area.