Speed gates

[KYLE ELLIS]

I was just wondering were you can get some equipment to measure the end of the run? I have seen them at Earl Bells and,Jacob Pauly's videos, and in jenn stuczynski's training video. I have seen them in Gill's catalog but they were very expensive! Are there any alternate timing devices to these?

[Oldcoach]

I built one for what would cost about $500 today. It uses industrial photocells, a timer clock and a hand built switching circuit to turn the clock on and off on command from the photocells. its harwired not wireless like the units that Gill and MF sell. The 4 photo cells cost about $80 each , the timer $50, the switching circuit $25 and rest for mounting boxes, wire,batteries.

[baggettpv]

I use the Brower timing system sold thru gill or bought from Brower. Before I used a stop watch and statistical analysis techniques to determine the speed of the athletes.

Rick Baggett

[KirkB]

If you know the speed of your vidcam (frames/sec) and you know the stride length of the vaulter, you can work out their speed on takeoff. You'll have to account for fractions of frames - since the frames aren't likely to both start and stop on an exact stride.

This works better for computing the average speed over the last few strides ... than the FINAL speed on the final step before takeoff.

An alternate way of using a vidcam to capture runway speed is to mark off 0, 5, 10, 15 meters from takeoff. Then you match up the frames to these marks ... instead of trying to match them up to any particular stride pattern. This allows you to compute the average speed between each mark.

Kirk

[CB]

The English team used the Jenaoptik LDM 300C Sport to measure speed at takeoff



image > http://avedam.xs4all.nl/polsstokspringen/londen_20070221_fotos/IMG_1279.JPG



image > http://avedam.xs4all.nl/polsstokspringen/londen_20070221_fotos/IMG_1280.JPG

I can’t find any price off this device, but probably they are pretty expensive

[Lax PV]

Look here--I think you can get what you need for much less than 500 bucks. Vernier puts out some good scientific testing equipment.

http://www.vernier.com/probes/vpg-btd.html

[KYLE ELLIS]

Does anyone know how Peter McGinuess does his studies on velocity at takeoff?? I talked to the guy at Vernier and he said he wasn't sure how accurate the product would be because different things like the hands or legs could break the laser instead of the torso. Does anyone know Peter Mcguiness on this board??

[master]

Last I heard, Peter uses a high speed camera with marks on the runway. Having sufficient frames per second (fps) allows for accurate timing. As Kirk mentioned, the standard 30 fps isn't sufficient without frame interpolation.

I think Wilson (vaultmd) ran the camera for Peter at the recent championships in Eugene.

- master

[VTechVaulter]

yes peter uses high speed camera. normally cameras are 29.87 frames per second, i believe peter's is around 120 i believe

[Borntovault]

You can build one. They are not that expensive to build compared to some of these gates that companies cell. We built one back home with stuff my dad sells, it's easy when your dad's company sells all the stuff I needed to make one. You need some photoeyes, timer, and reflectors. Plus the cables to run from the photoeyes to the timer. If you want a good way to do it that works and want it to be as cheap as possible then you should look at Earl's set up cause its a good cost efficient way of doing it and it works great. The PVC that he uses for stands makes them very light weight and portable. We made metal stands for mine and they were a little harder to transport if we had to, but I felt like it was pretty sturdy.

[vaultmd]

Another way is to get a basic version of Dartfish software (or the equivalent). With a camcorder and reference points marked on the runway or track the software will do all the math. The only problem is that you would not get immediate feedback like you would at Earl's and you would have to have a way to dump the footage into your PC or Mac running Windows.