Wilson's 3D-printed basketball is full of holes but never goes flat | Hacker News Reader

Wilson's 3D-printed basketball is full of holes but never goes flat

gizmodo.com

62 pointssohkamyung51 comments

Fatal flaw for outdoor games: what keeps this from picking up pieces of gravel or debris from the court?

Anything sharp or rough it picks up is then immediately headed for somebody's hands on the next pass.

And even if it wasn't sharp, it would shift the CG away from the center of the ball, which isn't a problem that traditional balls typically have as they deteriorate with age.

And even if it wasn't heavy enough to impact the CG, it would rattle around on the inside.

Still, I guess it could be nice on an indoor court.

I also feel like material fatigue would affect the ball's performance over time in ways not experienced by ordinary balls.

i.e. It doesn't need air, but does it bounce the same after thousands of bounces and hours of sunlight? Is the wear evenly distributed when left in the sun but not used? What about when it is used, but damage occurs for other reasons?

I think this is a valid concern for pro, semi-pro, collegiate and competitive recreational players. Not so sure for the millions of other players who play with crappy, uneven, knotted, too rough/smooth “ordinary” balls everyday. Of course that doesn’t mean there is a market for it.

I don't believe ordinary balls would experience the same level of degradation simply because the pressurized air inside is most of what makes it bounce

I've had basketballs fail. Suddenly your ball has a lump. Happens after a hard hit sometimes.

On the 3D printed one, I'd assume the opposite problem. A hard hit causes a dead spot or actual indent.

Both make it hard to play with.

The purpose of this ball is to get media outlets to play a story about Wilson basketballs. It’s a marketing play, not a product.

How many times has a game of basketball been thwarted by a ball that was too flat to bounce? An air pump with a properly sized needle isn’t something most people carry around with them all the time

I'm racking my brain trying to think of one. Organized games always have the pump and extra balls laying around. Every pick up game I've played involved a few people who happened to bring a ball, and a pump wasn't far away (car trunk, or house in the neighborhood), even if no one had one on them.

I'm all for new tech for its own sake, but if you're going to try to convince me this is going to be useful, give me some real reasons why this is better than a regular ball. Is it cheaper? Will it last longer either outdoors or indoors? Is it better for the environment?

> Organized games always have the pump and extra balls laying around. Every pick up game I've played involved a few people who happened to bring a ball, and a pump wasn't far away (car trunk, or house in the neighborhood), even if no one had one on them.

> I'm all for new tech for its own sake, but if you're going to try to convince me this is going to be useful, give me some real reasons why this is better than a regular ball.

Well the answer is convenience, right? Which shouldn't be underrated. Now you don't need spare balls, don't need to find a pump, and there's no more interruptions because of that.

It's also reducing the organization / forethought that's required, even if right now it's so commonplace that it's faded into the background.

Every time I've ever played there's been spares, not because people thought you'd need spares, but because every individual person wanted to make sure there would be at least one ball there.

This doesn't solve that particular problem.

Also during the warmup you need multiple balls. Then you don't have 10 people all waiting forever to take their shot.

When they came out with the “basketball with the tiny pump in it”, Wilson touted it as a big deal for inner city kids. This seems an effort along the same theme.

The needle in question is included in many cheap car tire air pump kit.

It is also compatible with any regular Schrader valve. For this reason I keep one inside my bicycle tire repair kit. When I go to the park with my kids I inflate the balls just before we play.

> Is it cheaper?

Very unlikely. The EOS machines are expensive and I guess it takes some time to print the ball.

But is the 3D printing solely for the prototyping phase? I would guess they’d just injection-mold the production version, after they’ve worked out the material/design questions.

But you can't really injection mold this geometry, it'd have to be done in 2 halves, or quarters, and then bonded together, which would make for weird bending performance in the area of the weld and therefore make a ball that bounces unevenly

Good point. Makes a lot of sense.

My thoughts exactly.

It would have meant a lot for them to bounce that ball

Video showing it being bounced and dunked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC02e5dcvZw

Would be nice to just watch a clip of people playing a pickup game with the ball rather than the hype vids. More hoops less hoopla.

oh god no, you can't actually bounce _this_ version. This is the display model. Plus none of them look like they could successfully dribble a basketball without shanking it off a foot.

That's not what they say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29kWFrNWnyk

"The 3D printed ball is truly playable, nearly fitting the performance specifications of a regulation basketball, including its weight, size and rebound (bounce)."

The article doesn’t appear to link to the promo ad. showing a player dribbling the ball. We use 3D printed parts in aerospace. There is no reason to think this doesn’t work.

It does. The caption for the top image, "Gif: YouTube - Wilson Basketball" links to the video.

This is interesting as a concept piece, but otherwise it seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Or more likely a stretch to somehow showcase the tech behind airless tires.

My concern for actual use is the tip of your finger grazing the edge of a hole as you're releasing the ball for a jump shot, changing the trajectory unintentionally.

it was used in the NBA dunk contest this past weekend. it works, it's neat, and it never goes flat.

I'd like to see if they dare to use it in the 3 point contest.

All those holes have to impact how people grip the ball, right? And air drag will be different as well.

I wonder how much the openings affect the drag.

And the grip. It might have the same dimensions, weight and bounce, but for sure the handling and the aerodynamics are going to be different.

I was wondering the same...does it shoot the same or will it curve like a wiffle ball?

Regardless it'd be great to not have to pump... especially on cold days.

The openings don't seem like an important part of the airless design. Once the structure is there, you can close them up for aerodynamics.

Plus less (no?) Magnus effect.

That is extremely ugly, and would be weird to handle. I always have a pump on me when I play. Most people bring at least a small bag pump to ball. This seems totally unnecessary.

I wonder if this could be made on at least one of the larger domestic filament printers out of TPU. I imagine a design around TPU 95 might work well. Certainly gives me the idea to try and make a ball that is hollow and pliant enough to bounce well.

Certainly looks like some people have tried it and got reasonable results for solid balls (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4358673)

The ball is so intricate I’d be very worried about the print completing successfully.

But it doesn't seem so intricate compared to other things people print successfully? Especially considering the scale, it's not very detailed.

I’m not sure if you’ve attempted to print something like this before. Don’t be fooled by the geometric shape. If you take the worst cross section of this ball, you’re essentially printing lots of small pillars. It’s a lot of movements and starting and stopping, extruding and retractions. It’s basically a lattice torture test.

On a filament printer, this is probably achievable with a stiff material like PLA or PETG, but could be a challenge to get a nice clean print. Something this large in a flexible material would be a massive pain. Not to mention the support material. FFF/FDM printers typically are good with overhangs up to 45 degrees measured from the Z axis. Some printers can do better and essentially print bridges but only over short distances. A full size basket ball would be difficult if not impossible to print without supports. And you couldn’t print the ball as is. You’d have to cut it in half so that supports could be removed. Then glue the pieces together.

Another commenter mentioned SLA printing. But that uses resin, not filament. The plastic is basically a liquid and cured layer by layer using a mask and UV. I’m not sure if there are flexible resins.

The article said it used a laser to sinter powder

That’s called an SLS machine and is way more expensive than household FDM (filament) and SLA (resin) printers.

Oh you can print it all right. Good luck getting all the support material out of there. I printed a Voronoi-pattered sphere with SLA, and even then it was quite an operation to get all the supports out of there.

I would not try printing something like this in FFF or SLA without supports. SLS is perfect for this.

I don't want to be overconfident, but I feel like getting rid of the supports would be time consuming, but not that difficult. They all connect to places that are accessible through the holes from the outside.

Another option would be a dual extruder printer with soluable supports, right?

The last time there was an attempt to make a major change to the NBA regulation basketball, in 2006, it went poorly because the ball they came up with was too hard, and left players with chafed, scratched-up fingers by the end of the game. (Some reported it softened up with use, but the reputation was set by that first impression.)

I don't think basketball needs to be very high tech, but I guess manufacturers aren't going to sit still either.

Any videos of a game with this ball?

Not a game, but this was linked in the comments: https://youtu.be/JC02e5dcvZw

It bounces fairly high and clearly has a bit of heft to the design. IANABBP, but looks good to me!

For those people hitting a geo-block on the above link, this one worked for me in AU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRoHKpmcRS0

It's hard to tell from the limited actual bouncing/etc in the clip, but it looks like it's lighter and has less bounce than a regulation ball. Still seems to bounce crazily well for something 3D printed and without air pressure inside it.

I'd be very excited to see this become a thing for balls in general if they can make them even close to existing basketball/soccer/etc balls. I doubt we'd ever see them in professional sports for tradition-reasons but for amateur/home fun I think it makes a lot of sense and for that market they don't need to be "perfect".

IANABBP

I am not a basketball... player? person?

IANA NBPA M(ember)

That video was low effort which makes me think this design is also low effort. Why didn’t they work with HP and MJF technology?

MJF is cool. I have an MJF Benchy at home!

Great tech and interesting design but the really nice thing would be if it was something we could buy today.

Leather seems like it would be much more durable. Sure you need to pump it, but it's less wasteful

I wonder if adding 3d printed foam in the middle would help or hurt areodynamics.

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