U.S. patent application number 11/258531 was filed with the patent office on 2007-04-26 for bouncing practice net.
Invention is credited to Grace Liao.
Application Number | 20070090601 11/258531 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 37984629 |
Filed Date | 2007-04-26 |
United States Patent
Application |
20070090601 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Liao; Grace |
April 26, 2007 |
Bouncing practice net
Abstract
A bouncing practice net is provided, including at least two
plies of nets. The mesh size of the back ply is smaller or equal to
the mesh size of the front ply, and both plies are arranged in an
asymmetrical or interleaved manner, and are tightly stretched and
attached inside a frame. The practice net can provide bouncing
trajectory that is unpredictable to simulate the actual
batting.
Inventors: |
Liao; Grace; (Hsinchu City,
TW) |
Correspondence
Address: |
LIN & ASSOCIATES INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
P.O. BOX 2339
SARATOGA
CA
95070-0339
US
|
Family ID: |
37984629 |
Appl. No.: |
11/258531 |
Filed: |
October 25, 2005 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
273/396 |
Current CPC
Class: |
A63B 69/0097 20130101;
A63B 2069/0011 20130101; A63B 69/002 20130101; A63B 69/0053
20130101; A63B 69/0002 20130101; A63B 2210/50 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
273/396 |
International
Class: |
A63B 63/00 20060101
A63B063/00 |
Claims
1. A bouncing practice net, comprising at least two plies of nets,
a back ply of two said plies having mesh size no larger than mesh
size of a front ply of two said plies, and said two plies of nets
being arranged in an asymmetrical manner.
2. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
mesh size of said back ply of net is equal to said mesh size of
said front ply of net and said both plies of nets are arranged in
an interleaved manner.
3. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
mesh size of said back ply of net is smaller said mesh size of said
front ply of net.
4. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
both plies of nets are arranged in an interleaved manner.
5. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
practice net comprises two plies of nets.
6. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
mesh of said practice net has a regular shape and is arranged in a
regular manner.
7. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 6, wherein said
mesh shape is rectangular.
8. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 6, wherein said
mesh shape is diamond.
9. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
mesh of said practice net has irregular shape and are arranged in
an irregular manner.
10. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
practice net is a two-dimensional structure.
11. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
practice net is a three-dimensional structure.
12. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 11, wherein said
practice net is a reverse-Y shape three-dimensional structure.
13. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
practice net is applied to a frame for baseball game practice.
14. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
practice net is applied to a frame for softball game practice.
15. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
practice net is applied to a frame for soccer game practice.
16. The bouncing practice net as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
practice net is attached to a frame using a plurality of buckles.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention generally relates to a bouncing
practice net for ball games, and more specifically to a practice
net providing a non-deterministic bouncing direction.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] FIG. 1 shows a conventional bouncing practice net for
pitching and catching of a ball. The first user can pitch the ball
to the net, and the ball is bounced by the net for the second user
to catch. The first user can use the practice net to improve the
precision of the pitch, while the second user can practice the
skill of quick reaction to the bounced ball. Depending on the
location at which the ball hits the practice net, the conventional
practice net will bounce the ball in various direction and path for
the user to practice the catch. For example, when the ball hits the
practice net at a higher vertical surface, the ball will be bounced
by the practice net as a ground ball or a line drive. On the other
hand, when the ball hits the net at a lower slant surface, the ball
will be bounced by the practice net as a fly ball. Therefore, the
conventional practice ball is used to simulate the batting of a
batter so that the fielders can practice to catch the batted
ball.
[0003] However, in the actual ball game, the trajectory of the
batted ball is usually more complicated than the simulated
trajectory available in the conventional practice net because the
force, the direction and the location of the batting on the ball.
As the conventional practice net uses a single layer net, the
bouncing direction is usually predicable, as aforementioned.
Although the part (a) indicated in FIG. 1 is adjustable to tilting
a small angle, the overall trajectory of the bounced ball is still
deterministic, and fails to simulate the full range of possible
trajectories of a batted ball. Therefore, it is important to
provide an improved practice net to rectify the drawbacks of a
conventional practice net.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0004] The present invention has been made to overcome the
above-mentioned drawback of conventional practice net. The primary
object of the present invention is to provide a practice net with a
non-deterministic bouncing trajectory. The main feature of the
practice net is a double-ply net so that the front ply of the net
provides the force for bouncing, and the back ply of the net
controls the direction of the bounce. Therefore, the trajectory of
a bounced ball is sufficiently non-deterministic to simulate the
actual batting for catching practice.
[0005] To achieve the above object, the present invention provides
a double-ply net. The double-ply net can be made of nylon or other
material with suitable elasticity and strength. The back ply of the
net should have a mesh size smaller or equal to the mesh size of
the front ply. In addition, the meshes of the front ply and the
back ply are interleaved, instead of aligned and symmetric.
[0006] The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and
advantages of the present invention will become better understood
from a careful reading of a detailed description provided herein
below with appropriate reference to the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0007] The present invention can be understood in more detail by
reading the subsequent detailed description in conjunction with the
examples and references made to the accompanying drawings,
wherein:
[0008] FIG. 1 shows a schematic view of a conventional bouncing
practice net;
[0009] FIG. 2 shows a schematic view of frame with a bouncing
practice net of the present invention;
[0010] FIG. 3 shows a dissect view of a bouncing practice net of
the present invention;
[0011] FIG. 4 shows a schematic view of a frame with a second
embodiment of a bouncing practice net of the present invention;
[0012] FIG. 5 shows a schematic view of another frame with a third
embodiment of a bouncing practice net of the present invention;
and
[0013] FIG. 6 shows a schematic view of the bouncing practice net
used in a soccer game practice net.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0014] FIG. 2 shows a frame with a bouncing practice net of the
present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, frame 1 is a rectangle, and
the back of the frame includes a support stand 11 so that frame 1
stands with a tilting angle. A bouncing practice net 2 of the
present invention is attached to frame 1. The four sides of
practice net 2 include a plurality of buckle elements for engaging
with frame 1 so that practice net 2 is tightly stretched within the
boundary of frame 1. Frame 1 and buckle elements 3 are similar to
those used in conventional practice net.
[0015] Practice net 2 of the present invention includes at least
two plies of nets. The embodiment in FIG. 3 shows a double-ply
structure, including a net 21, and a net 22. Net 21 is placed at
the front as the first ply to touch the ball, and net 22 is placed
behind net 21. The four sides 221, 222 of nets 21, 22 are stitched
or glued together. In addition, the meshes of nets 21, 22 are not
aligned or symmetrically arranged, for example, nets 21 and 22 can
be interleaved. The mesh size of net 22 is smaller or equal to the
mesh size of net 21. The preferred embodiment of the present
invention is that net 22 has a smaller mesh size and is interleaved
with net 21. Practice net 2 can be made of nylon or other material
with suitable elasticity and strength so that a ball will bounce
when the ball hits tightly stretched practice net 2.
[0016] FIG. 2 shows bouncing practice net 2 is tightly stretched
inside frame 1. Net 21 and net 22 are pressed against each other
due to the stretch. Because net 22 is smaller in size, net 22 is
more tightly stretched when attached to frame 1. As a result, net
22 provides stronger bouncing force than net 21. When a ball hits
practice net 2, net 21 touches and bounces the ball. In the
process, net 22 also touches the ball and the reaction force from
net 22 is applied to a point or a line on the ball to change the
bouncing trajectory of the ball. Therefore, the trajectory becomes
unpredictable due to the effect of net 22. Furthermore, nets 21, 22
are stitched together along four sides with the center parts
pressing against each other. Therefore, the effect of net 22 may be
different even when the ball hits the same location of the net.
This further simulates the trajectory range of the batting of a
batter.
[0017] The meshes of nets 21, 22 are regularly shaped and arranged,
as the square mesh shown in FIG. 1. But the mesh is not limited to
those shown in FIG. 1, the shape can be irregular and the
arrangement of the meshes can also be irregular. FIG. 4 shows a
second embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a
practice net 2a has the diamond shape mesh. Furthermore, both nets
21, 22 may include different meshes at different part of the net;
alternatively, net 21 and net 22 may include different meshes so
that the combination of the shapes and the arrangement of the
meshes of net 21 and net 22 can vary to create further
non-determinism.
[0018] FIG. 5 shows a third embodiment of the present invention. In
this embodiment, a frame 4 has the shape of a reverse Y. A practice
net 2b of the present invention is also stretched in the reverse Y
shape. All the sides of reverse-Y practice net 2b are attached to
frame 4 by buckles 3. The upper part 41 of frame 4 is adjustable to
tilt an angle to generate more variety of trajectories. In
addition, frame 4 can be used on both sides. Therefore, the present
invention is not limited to a two-dimensional design. A
three-dimensional frame with the bouncing practice net of the
present invention can be used to meet different practice
demands.
[0019] FIG. 6 shows an embodiment of using the present invention in
a soccer game practice. The embodiment includes a frame 5, a
practice net 6 and a plurality of buckles 3. Because the embodiment
is for soccer practice, the mesh size is slightly larger, but
remains smaller than the size of the soccer ball. At the center of
the net, an auxiliary net 65 having a smaller mesh size is included
to increase the bouncing force. Practice net 6 still includes two
nets 61, 62 to provide the non-deterministic bouncing trajectory
for practice.
[0020] In summary, the practice net of the present invention
includes at least two plies of nets. The back ply of the net
applies the reaction force to a point or a line on the ball to
change the bouncing trajectory of the ball. The prevent invention
can be applied in a variety of ball games for bouncing practice,
and can be used with a variety of frame shapes.
[0021] Although the present invention has been described with
reference to the preferred embodiments, it will be understood that
the invention is not limited to the details described thereof.
Various substitutions and modifications have been suggested in the
foregoing description, and others will occur to those of ordinary
skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and
modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the
invention as defined in the appended claims.
* * * * *