How A Pitching Machine Works

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the balls are placed in a giant metal crate on the side of the Iron Mike. Once all the balls are settled in the crate a giant cork screw spins around causing the balls to slide down it into a tube. The corkscrew had rotational inertia. This is a measure of an object’s resistance to changes to its rotation. It is the inertia of a rotating body with respect to its rotation. As the ball proceeds down the tube it stops at a certain point. This tube is made of plastic and is held on an angle from the end of the corkscrew to where the ball meets the mechanical arm. The reason that the ball doesn’t stop along the way down the tube is because the tube is at an angle. This means that the force downward on the ball plus its W in mass is greater. Also there is sliding friction on the ball and not static friction. The reason that it’s not static friction is because; static friction is friction between two solid objects that are not moving relative to each other. For example, “static friction can ...

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on how the machine is programmed.
The wheel machine is similar and different to both the “iron Mike” machine and the cannon. The wheel has the same idea that the “iron mike” has in that they both use centripetal force by use of the arm and the wheel to propel the ball at the batter. Although the “iron mike” uses an arm that simulates the pitcher arm action, the wheel machine uses a wheel that is a giant rubber wheel about 2 feet in diameter, that in the end produces the same result. Once the ball is fed into the machine either by hand or by another way of doing it, the ball will enter through a flat shaped runway looking piece of metal where it will gain traction against the rubber ...

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