US 2023/0125701 A1Published application

Ball Tossing Machine

AssigneeProsist Sports Equipment Co., LLC

InventorsJohn Frederick Bruner, William C. Cleveland, Jeffrey Paul Broadrick, David Andrew Hannah, Lee Ellis Jarrell, JR.

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

patentgrep

Loading patent…

Abstract

The present invention relates to an improved ball tossing device that is portable and adjustable to accommodate a variety of different balls and lobbing preferences. This may be achieved through various features including some or all of the following: a ball feeding mechanism using a rotating disk with an offset feed channel to deliver balls to the ball tossing queue; a catapult arm that uses a motor/spring mechanism to toss balls in the queue out of the machine; an indexer feature for isolating the ball to be tossed from the other balls in the queue; and adjustable features that allow users to vary ball trajectory of the ball being tossed.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A ball tossing device comprising:

a hopper configured to hold one or more balls, the hopper comprising one or more sides and a base;
and
a disk located proximate the base of the hopper, the disk including an upper surface with an upper opening defined in the upper surface, a lower surface with a lower opening defined in the lower surface, and a feed channel located in the disk, the feed channel including a channel wall extending from the upper opening to the lower opening, the disk further configured to rotate about a rotation axis, wherein the upper opening, the lower opening, the feed channel, and the channel wall are configured to rotate in a fixed relationship about the rotation axis;
wherein the lower opening of the disk is substantially aligned with the rotation axis and the upper opening of the disk is offset with respect to the rotation axis, such that when the disk is rotated about the rotation axis, the upper opening rotates at a substantially fixed distance from the rotation axis and the lower opening remains in a substantially constant location relative to the rotation axis,
wherein the feed channel is configured to receive at least one of the one or more balls from the hopper via the upper opening, and the channel wall is configured to route the at least one of the one or more balls from the upper opening to the lower opening through the feed channel to be tossed by the ball tossing device.

2 more elements

A ball tossing machine comprising:

a housing structure;
a ball hopper coupled to the housing structure configured to hold one or more balls to be tossed;
a disk coupled to the housing structure, the disk including an upper surface with an upper opening defined in the upper surface, a lower surface with a lower opening defined in the lower surface, and a feed channel located in the disk, the feed channel including a channel wall extending from the upper opening to the lower opening, the disk further configured to rotate about a rotation axis, wherein the upper opening, the lower opening, the feed channel, and the channel wall are configured to rotate in a fixed relationship about the rotation axis;
and
a platform coupled to the housing structure,
wherein the lower opening of the disk is substantially aligned with the rotation axis and the upper opening of the disk is offset with respect to the rotation axis, such that when the disk is rotated about the rotation axis, the upper opening rotates at a substantially fixed radius from the rotation axis and the lower opening remains in a substantially constant location,
wherein the feed channel is configured to receive at least one of the one or more balls from the hopper via the upper opening,
wherein the platform is configured to receive through the feed channel the at least one of the one or more balls and hold the at least one of the one or more balls prior to being tossed by the ball tossing device.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.