(ORDO NEWS) — Sports equipment manufacturer Wilson recently unveiled a 3D printed prototype basketball that doesn’t need to be inflated and has a transparent grille.
Basketball technology has come a long way since the sport’s early days of stitched leather as its main material, but Wilson is trying to eliminate pneumatic pressure with an intriguing concept.
Wilson’s airless prototype relies on the elasticity of its “research grade” polymer material to produce the same bounce as traditional basketballs.
This eliminates the need to inflate the ball and also eliminates other known issues such as puncture risk and air escaping through the inflatable valve for extended periods of time.
One of the most intriguing features of the airless basketball is the lattice design.
While Wilson retained the traditional fastening pattern of a conventional basketball, ensuring that players can still insert their fingers into the seam lines for better grip, the prototype has a very futuristic feel.
Since maintaining air pressure inside is no longer a requirement, the ball itself is transparent, with hundreds of small hexagonal holes to let air through.
Working with manufacturing company EOS, the developer reportedly 3D-printed its airless prototype using selective laser sintering (SLS) to fuse multiple layers of polymer powder.
The main goal was to replicate the bounce of a traditional basketball, which was no small feat considering there was no internal air pressure to create the bounce.
The prototype ball was unveiled last month during NBA All-Star Weekend, when Houston Rockets forward “KJ” Martin was caught on video jumping a little and throwing the ball into the basket.
The company acknowledges that this is still a prototype that needs work.
Indeed, there are several unanswered questions regarding this intriguing invention.
For example, we don’t really know how the air passing through it affects the flight path, or how it behaves on a windy day. But what happens if something, like a pebble, gets inside the ball?
Perhaps we should just wait until Wilson puts the airless basketball on the market, if they ever decide to do so.
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