WORCESTER, Mass. — Pickleball may be fun, but it does raise a ruckus.
“Whenever the pickleball hits the paddle, it’s a loud pop, which in neighborhoods could be a problem,” said Zoey LoPresti, a recent graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
She, along with three other mechanical engineering students, did a senior project to see if they could develop a ball which would be quieter while maintaining the integrity of the game.
So just how loud is pickleball?
A quiet night in the suburbs is about 40 decibels.
A game of pickleball hits about 70 decibels, with a hard spike at the net reaching 90.
Compare that to a lawnmower which crests at about 107 decibels.
“When you have so many people playing at once, it’s loud,” said William McNamara, another member of the project.
Kyla Dominiquez De Los Santos, another team member, said they decided to pursue two paths to quieting play down: altering the geometry of the ball; and changing the composition of the plastic used to create a ball.
McNamara said the students built an ad hoc acoustic chamber to evaluate sound levels of the new balls compared with the most popular brands.
In the lab, the students built a custom mold for injectable polymers.
They also tested the density of balls to make sure they’d still have enough pop in them.
Another area of inquiry was how well the balls bounced.
With all their modifications, the students believe they did get some sound reduction.
They attribute that to changing the materials used to construct a ball.
Faculty advisor Fiona Zoutendyk, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, thought this project was very ambitious.
Even though this group of students, along with Grace Henderson, have now graduated, Zoutendyk believes the foundation they created could be built upon by future students.
“They’ve created this equipment. They’ve built this lab scale injection molder, which we could modify in a future project, so there are plenty of future directions other teams could take with this.”
To get expert advice on different prototypes, the students drafted the WPI Pickleball Club to see what they thought about the balls they were creating.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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