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Ball Machine Selector 2006 — Oscillation

No Oscillation

Machines with an “X” in this column are not cabable of feeding the ball in more than one direction. So, if you want to practice forehands you have to point the machine toward your forehand and vice-versa for backhands. However, you cannot practice forehands and backhands at the same time unless you’re willing to use a little extra footwork.

Oscillation — Random

These machines are capable of feeding balls randomly to different locations on the court to simulate real play. However, as we explained before, you need to do a little more inquiring to find out just how randomly the machine can shoot balls. Some machines can choose randomly between two positions, while others can shoot balls virtually anywhere on the court.

Oscillation — Programmable

This is another feature that requires a closer look. Machines in this column have a control panel that allows you to shoot balls in a pattern that you determine. But look to the next few columns to see how complicated a program you can give it.

# of Shots in Program

This column indicates how many different shots you can program before the machine repeats its program. So, machines that have a higher number in this column offer you the opportunity to create a more complicated drill for yourself or your students.

Adjustable Depth within Program

These machines offer the opportunity to create even more complicated drills because they allow you to feed one ball deep in the court followed by another ball that is shorter in the court.

Adjustable Spin within Program

Again, these machines offer more complicated drills because they allow you to vary the amount of topspin or underspin from one shot to the next.

Adjustable Height within Program

These machines allow you to vary the height of the balls during the program. So, you can practice against a ball that comes high over the net followed by another ball that is fed low over the net.

Adjustable Interval within Program

These machines allow you to vary the time between ball feeds during the program. This way you can tell the machine to feed you a lob and wait long enough for you to hit the overhead before feeding the next ball. Or you can program a longer time between balls you will be hitting from the baseline than balls you will be hitting from the net.

Interactive Feed Control

The Boomer from Robot Optimizers features a video camera, a powerful computer, and can even talk to a player.

These features allow a player to play a game against Boomer, where Boomer is the opponent, umpire, ball-boy, cheerleader, and wiseguy (it even trash talks). The camera is used to rate each shot a player hits from 1 to 9 based on speed, depth, and width. In game mode the machine varies its feeds based on the quality of the shot from the player. In drill mode, it says the score of each ball and even tells the player if the shot is out.

From the July 2006 issue
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