Baseball Picker Upper V1

Possible Solution #2

A device that has bendable wires where when you roll over a ball, the wires bend to allow the ball in but then close to keep it in.

Possible Solution #3

A device that rolls on wheels which consists of a low, inclined bar where balls will hit and roll up into a net.

Possible Solution #1

Constraints

-Must be cost efficient

-Can not be too big to hinder movement

PVC pipe that you push down over the baseballs, which will then keep them in with a rope or flexible material.

Criteria

-Must be able to carry at least 7 balls

-Must be able to pick up balls without the effort of bending over

-Must hold baseballs and not let them fall out

The Problem

Design Statement

Baseball practice can be tiring, especially when it’s batting practice. Baseballs flying off bats into the outfield, infield, foul, and all in all everywhere. Wouldn't it be easier to be able to pick up a whole bucket of balls at a time instead of making multiple trips?

The Selected Design

We plan to create a device that will be able to pick up at least 7 baseballs, be portable, and increase the speed at which baseballs can be picked up.

We have selected the design of the PVC pipe. We chose the PVC pipe because it has an ease of use rating of 5, a durability rating of 5, a cost rating of 5, a aesthetics rating of 3, a safety rating of 5, and a environmentally friendly rating of 5.

Each person can hold up to 6 baseballs per trip, meaning that with a bucket of 60 balls, you need 10 people all with their hands full. A whole bucket of baseballs could take up to 10 minutes to run and pick them up like this.

This is a problem because 10 minutes is 1/12 of a baseball practice and baseball teams, usually having 12 players, will spend 2 hours doing this if done incorrectly.

Top View

Exploded

Refining the Design

Front View

Testing the Model

For refining the design we chose to focus on aesthetics. We chose to paint the PVC pipe to make it look better at first glance.

This design is capable of completing the tasks that we created for it. It is able to be cost efficient, it is easy to use, and it can pick up more than 7 balls at once. Since this is a PVC pipe it is very cost efficient. This design has a very high ease of use and is accessible for almost all ages. Some bad things are that it can become easily damaged in the process of its use. Also it does not look as aesthetically pleasing as we would like. We could improve this by adding a strap for increased mobility. We could also add aesthetics to make the design look better.

Building the Model

We also chose to add strap for increased mobility.

We are using a 3 inch PVC pipe for this. This PVC pipe is 4 feet tall with an inside diameter of 3.068 inch. The outside diameter is 3.5 and the minimum wall thickness is 0.216. This pipe has a net or elastic material on the bottom that will allow the ball in but once it is in, will keep it in. The top can be used as an emptying device.

Lastly, we chose to add bungee cords instead of ropes or elastics.

The Baseball Picker Upper