Hello Everyone!
I would like to ask for some guidance for my first DIY arduino Project! I love to play all sports and often throw my lacrosse ball against the wall and catch it. My goal is to be able to use some sort of sensor to track how many times the ball hits the wall. I have been learning about all the different types of sensors I should use and I am going to be honest it is a little overwhelming.
At first, I thought I could just use a PIR sensor at the base of the wall and stand it strait up. However, this obviously didn't work because of the lack of temp difference.
So now I have taken a step back and am trying to figure out which path I should go down. These are the paths I have in mind:
Use an ultrasonic sensor or maybe a microwave sensor
use a piezo to track the vibration on the wall when the ball hits
use microphone to hear the thud of the wall when hit
or maybe even use a camera (although trying to keep costs low)
I would not use a microwave sensor; it doesn't reset fast enough. Not sure how ultrasonic would work, but try it. Piezo sounds interesting as long as you can drill into the wall and leave it there. Mic might work but will require filtering to eliminate background and focusing. Camera is not a good choice.
What material is the wall (target) made of? What is the area of the wall that the ball might hit (square meters or feet)? How big is the space (room) where the target wall is located?
Right now the wall is just a brick wall in my basement. However, I'd like to be able to move my design and have it work on multiple types of walls. The area of the wall the the ball hits it roughly a 9ftx5ft square.
Well, a brick wall eliminates vibration sensing. A microphone approach with the ball "thump" signal attenuated so random noise is not counted and filtered to catch only fast rising sound spikes might work.
Going down the acoustic route. Is there a way to track the (thump) of the ball if sensor is moved to a different wall? Or would it have to been toned to one specific wall?