I am thinking of trying to design a baseball pitching target. The actual target would be a 7"Wx13"H rectangle (43cmX76cm). "The plan" (or what's in my head at this moment) would be to use pairs of infrared LED emitters/receivers (8 pairs top to bottom, 16 pairs side to side). Some sort of an encoder for the vertical (up to 8) pairs and for the (up to) 16 horizontal pairs to input the positions to the Arduino. Then some sort of decoder to light up 1 LED in an 8X16 array of LEDs to show the position the ball passed through the target.... The software would basically just have to determine which horizontal/vertical pairs the ball passed thru and then turn on the appropriate LED. The actual numbers of vertical/horizontal pairs will be dependant upon trying to ensure that they are the correct distance apart to "ensure" the baseball only passes through 1 horiz and 1 vert pair but can't pass through and miss all pairs. I guess my major concerns (at this level of prelimenary thinking) are interference to the LEDs from sunlight. I can block sun from the backside with a bag to catch the balls. The front side is harder because it is wide open. The actual LEDs will be shielded from the sun but I'm not sure about sunlight that enters the "field" of the LED pairs. The other issue is the angle of the emitter infrared output. All the ones I've seen are about 20 degrees. I don't know it that can be "sharpened" by using a 'lens' over the LED to direct it thru a small hole and if that will affect the distance too much. Just things being tossed around in my head at the moment.
Does this seem reasonably doable?? Or am I going in the completely wrong direction. I have no specific questions at the moment, just looking for comments that might point me in the right direction.
Or would it be better to build a target with a 3x3 or 4x4 grid and some sort of sensor behind each square of the grid?? That position could be fed to the Arduino which could then light up the correct position LED to show where the ball actuaqlly hit... That would probably be much easier but maybe not as cool as the first idea But, I'm not sure what kind of sensor could be used that wouldn't be triggered by an impact anywhere on the target.
This is my first post. I have been learning the Arduino with some online courses. I was an electronics techician in the navy for 20 years but that was 30 years ago and probably closer to 40 since I was hands on. Much has changed!!
But, I'm not sure what kind of sensor could be used that wouldn't be triggered by an impact anywhere on the target.
