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Science Technology

Life-Saving Baseballs 40

Posted by timothy from the more-like-droids dept.
DeAshcroft writes "Researchers at the Penn State Acoustics Lab have developed life-saving baseballs. As described in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, the team put microphones and wireless transmitters into baseballs, which they toss into piles of rubble to find the (noise-making) survivors. The advantage with baseballs is that they apparently don't have to stop work on the pile to listen for survivors. So, remember, if you're ever trapped in a collapsed building, the basball is your friend. The college paper has a story."
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Life-Saving Baseballs More

Life-Saving Baseballs

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  • strike one? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @04:40PM (#5381472)
    you're out

  • Excellent 'cluster' interface. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:11PM (#5381759) Homepage Journal

    Such an elegant solution, using the 'cluster' configuration.

    I suppose things like this could be used for ship-wreck/plane-wreck situations too, where some sort of mass of floating balls is released during structural damage or hull-breach to be grabbed by survivors for tracking purposes.

    Maybe in Space this would be useful? Hull-breach in the dome, sections of which when destroyed by structural breaks, release thousands of tiny 'life-balls' which, when activated by a human, send out "SOS"...

  • Inquiring minds want to know! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:11PM (#5381765)
    Does MLB get a cut of the profits from the devices?

    Would these baseballs, when tossed into debris, distract the search dogs?

    Do these baseballs work in conjunction with MLB's spy satellite? If so, would a tinfoil hat prevent them from finding me?

    Do these baseballs have RFID tags, and if so, shouldn't we protest their use?

    Can they help me find my car keys?

    If I whistle in the rubble, will the baseball beep so I can find it if _it_ gets lost?

    What would happen if terrorists got ahold of these baseballs? Think of the children!

    Can a swallow carry such a baseball by gripping it's "husk"? Perhaps by two swallows flying in tandem? African or European?

    Can these baseballs be used with bats? If so, wooden or aluminium?

    If they're networked together within a field of debris, would that mean you'd have a Beowulf cluster of them? Would that find people faster?

    Do these run on BSD? If so, they're dead (along with Apple).

    Do these use any GPL code? If so, GNU/Baseball!

    Has the design of these been put out under any particular Open Sores License yet? If so, which one, if not, why not? If not now, when? If not me, who? What? Why? Where? When? Whatever.

    Duuude, yer gettin' a baseball! (Sweeeeet.)

    Go get it, Lycos! (arf! arf!) ((Good boy, Ubu.))

    Can you tell how much soda I've already had today?

    • You forgot (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      1. Are these baseballs filled with hot grits to nourish and warm trapped survivors?
      2. If this were Soviet Russia, would we use people to find trapped baseballs?
      3. ???
      4. PROFIT.

    • Triangulation, tetrahedrons, golf balls (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Randym ( 25779 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:37PM (#5381984)
      If they're networked together within a field of debris, would that mean you'd have a Beowulf cluster of them? Would that find people faster?

      Good point. It should be easy enough to triangulate (well, since it's a three dimensional pile, I suppose you'd need *4* baseballs, so 'quadrangulate') the location of victims by simultaneously analyzing the relative volume of sounds picked up by the baseballs.

      May I also suggest enclosing some of these baseballs in a tetrahedron framework (probably made of some non-conductive wire, i.e. not copper). This will mean that baseballs enclosed in this sort of framework that are tossed in at the top of a heap of rubble do not go all the way down, but stop on any relatively level surface that they encounter. Then you would have round baseballs near the bottom of the pile, and tetrahedral baseballs further up, thus enabling a better "3-D" acoustic view.

      Also, why not use golf balls too? They are even smaller (so that they could go through smaller cracks) and are also resistant to damage from smashing into things.

      • You're wrong.

        To find a spot in a 3D-environment the direction from 3 distinct baseballs is enough. In a 2D field, *2* baseballs would be enough.

        • Um, to find a spot in >= 2 dimensions, two baseballs is enough to triangulate. (The tri- in triangulate refers to the three points involved, two sensors and the object being located.) This is why your eyes work in three dimensions. Think about it... using your index fingers, you can point to any location in three dimensions, you don't need to use your nose.

        • News for nerds and we don't even have geometry skills. Ok, quick recap.

          That's start in 2D. What we have is a single point (our baseball) which hears a noise. We use this noise to determine a distance at which the source of the noise is likely located. Since all we know is where the ball is (hopefully) and the strength of the noise, we can now a draw a circle around the ball somewhere along which our target lies. Dropping another ball results in a another circle with a different center. Provided our balls dropped in different places, these two circles overlap at either one or two places. As such, we still need a THIRD ball in 2D to find out person. And this is assuming we can make a definite translation from signal level to distance as well as pinpoint the location of the baseballs.

          Now 3D. Instead of circles we have spheres. The intersection of two spheres is a circle or a point if we're really lucky. The intersection of a circle and a sphere is two points or a single point. This means we need four baseballs (each creating its own spehere) to find someone in the rubble heap.

          High school flashbacks. Scary.

          • In general to find an object using triangulation in n space, we need n+1 objects that can tell us the distance between itself and the object we are looking for. And we need to know the precise location of the n+1 objects.

            Penn State Math grad

          • Your explanation assumes the balls only know the distance.

            I'd think it would be easier to find the _direction_ of an unknown sound than the distance. This is not a GPS situation.

            If the balls knew the direction the sound was coming from, then can't you find a point in 3D space from lines drawn from the two balls (points)? Relative to the two balls of course.

            Now if you knew both the distance and the direction only one ball/point would be enough (3D polar coordinates).

    • Does MLB get a cut of the profits from the devices?

      "Do you want me to tell you the awful truth, or do you want me to hit some dingers?"

      "DINGERS!, DINGERS!"

  • Not Baseballs (Score:5, Informative)

    by rcs2 ( 261027 ) <rcs&dartmouth,edu> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:39PM (#5382010)
    they are wireless microphones, theres nothing about the baseball that means anything. The article says they put one of the mics in a baseball and hit it with a bat to test shock resiliency.
    • they put one of the mics in a baseball and hit it with a bat to test shock resiliency.

      Being in a baseball (well, spherical) case does have some possible uses -- depending on where you wanted it to go. A round, bouncy, shape could allow it to bounce closer to the bottom of a hole. An uneven non-bouncy shape would likely stay near the top. You could use whichever shape was most likely to get themake it microphone where you wanted it.

  • Kinda like an airplanes black box?

    Record structural stresses at key points, info that could be invaluable in analyzing the situation afterward.

    You'd know exactly where they were placed in the constuction or retrofitting of the building, and perhaps could be even more useful than loose devices, providing they weren't damaged during the destruction of the building.
  • The advantage with baseballs is that they apparently don't have to stop work on the pile to listen for survivors.

    Are baseballs more advantageous than say, cricket balls, tennis balls, racket balls, or golf balls?

    How so?

    --Turkey

  • Why baseballs? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Black Rabbit ( 236299 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:45PM (#5382768)
    I wonder why they picked baseballs, as opposed to something smaller. If there's something een more indestructible than a baseball, it's a golfball. One of these would also be able to be put into a smaller space, and with a suitable plastic shell, could be made to glow in the dark so that somebody in a deep hole could actually find one!

    Hell, why not both, depending on the situation?
    • It seems like you never bothered to read the article.. putting it into a baseball was just to test the resilience of the unit--- Hit a home run, then check to see if the microphone is still transmitting when it lands. The reason why they didn't play golf with it may simply be that (including the transmitter and battery) it was simply too big to fit.

      "Far be it for me to criticize, sir, but that golf ball aooears to be almost the size of a baseball...

      • I did read the article, and gathered that fact. But think about it...something like a baseball is actually quite a logical thing to stick a wireless mike into for the purpose of dropping down a hole...it's compact, durable, and ROUND, so it can roll down a pipe or a trench. But a golfball is more so in all these respects, so with the exception of any complications concerning battery power, it's probably a better go than the baseball. As for durability, I don't think it's going to suffer anything like the shock of a baseball hit, but even so, think about the typical force exerted on a golfball at tee-off, and that isn't anything to sneeze at.
      • I was going to add, also, that, if you think about the technology used for covert surveillance, a golfball sized mike and transmitter of reasonable range and longevity should be quite feasible, plus there's still all the other things I mentioned in my original post relating to the plastic outer shell being enhanced visually.

  • in a related story, (Score:3, Funny)

    by Enrico Pulatzo ( 536675 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:50PM (#5382805)
    Fox Sports has ordered a number of the mic'ed balls in order to promote its new "Sounds of the Game" portion of its MLB coverage. Hear the deafing sound of the bat cracking against a homerun ball, then listen to the fans fight over said ball.
    • This is a fantastic idea, point the camera at the crowds for added impact. Next; A golf ball with GPS so it can send its location to your motorola gps-enabled radio. (Or PDA with radio modem module.) If you had course geometry in your palmtop it could even keep score automatically, in the bargain.
  • If you thought the 73rd Home Run ball was worth alot wait until one of these balls saves a life and see home much it goes for on e-bay!

  • They don't bounce much. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ptaff ( 165113 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @08:03PM (#5383249) Homepage
    I wonder why they used baseballs - yes they're more resistant than, let's say, tennis balls, and you don't want to crush the electronics inside.

    But if the ball is supposed to locate people who are stuck inside a pile of debris, I guess the deeper the ball gets, the better; and baseballs don't bounce much. Imagine throwing a SuperBall(TM) and a baseball inside an irregularly shaped tunnel 1 feet wide - which ball will get the deeper inside the tunnel?
  • This seems like this has been done before. The article mentions that this research was done after 9/11. I have seen a few shows on discovery channel about avalanches and using transmitters to find people. What is the difference between those devices and this one done by Penn State?
    • I have seen a few shows on discovery channel about avalanches and using transmitters to find people. What is the difference between those devices and this one done by Penn State?

      For avalanche rescue, the transmitters are usually being worn by the people who buried. If you're hunting for someone trapped in an avalanche, there's not much need for tranmitting microphones in the hands of the rescuers. At the most, you'd want a microphone on the end of a long stick that you'd poke into the snowpile while listening for an "ouch".

    • I just called my friend who is part of the NASA Ames DART (Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team), which is part of California Task Force 3, one of 28 FEMA urban search and rescue teams, so I could I ask him about this idea. These are the guys that get called to go to Oklahoma City, WTC, earthquake sites etc. Anyway, he says in the past they have used long probes with wires which they snake down into the debris to listen for sounds that could be made by survivors in the viod spaces, but a sufficiently sturdy wireless transmitter would be new as far as he knows. I was surprised to hear that, but as the article says this was not a big priority area for research before 9/11. He said that not having to go close enough to run wires, and being able to deploy a bunch of these mics quickly all over a site, would be big advantages.

  • Did I get this right... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From now on I have to carry a baseball as well as the towel with me?
  • They're softer, bounce further, and lighter!

  • oh... (Score:1)

    by C21 ( 643569 )
    oh nanotechnology, when will you come and obsolete these crazy baseball type ideas!

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