Pickleball ball
OwnerHoward HAUGOM, Fang XIE +2inventors
InventorsHoward HAUGOM, Fang XIE, Jordan Willem MIKKERS, Eric Matt LITTLE
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A pickleball ball is provided for increasing durability, improving performance, and/or reducing the loudness and/or frequency of sound generated when said ball strikes a paddle. The ball being a hollow ball comprised of a spherical shell defining a hollow cavity. The ball is made of a graphene-infused polymer material and the shell defines a plurality of holes distributed around the surface of the ball.
Claims25
A pickleball ball for increasing durability, improving performance, and/or reducing the loudness and/or frequency of sound generated when said ball strikes a paddle, the ball being a hollow ball comprising a spherical shell defining a hollow cavity, and the shell defining a plurality of holes distributed around the surface of the ball in a pattern of equally spaced holes, wherein said pattern is determined based on a Coulomb force model by reiteratively distributing a given number of points constrained on a spherical surface, said given number of points corresponding to the plurality of holes, to provide an arrangement of holes with distances therebetween, wherein distances between any two adjacent holes in the hole pattern are optimized by reiteratively constraining to equal distance therebetween within a tolerance threshold.
A method of manufacturing a pickleball ball, the ball being a hollow ball comprising a spherical shell defining a hollow cavity, the shell defining a plurality of holes arranged on its surface according to a hole pattern of evenly spaced holes, the method comprising determining a model hole pattern and manufacturing the pickleball based on said model hole pattern, wherein the determining the model hole pattern comprises:
- creating an initial three-dimensional point cloud model of a sphere and a plurality of radiating lines extending from the center of the sphere and terminating at corresponding end points on the surface of the sphere;
- and
- constraining the end points to the surface of the sphere and generating distance line segments connecting each end point to all of the closest neighboring end points.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.