Selkirk Sports, a leading manufacturer of pickleball paddles and equipment, is funding pioneering research on the performance of pickleball paddles and balls.
The study, to be conducted by researchers from Washington State University’s Sports Science Laboratory (SSL) will look to test and compare pickleball and study how paddle performance will be impacted if weight is added to it. To do this, the researchers will perform controlled laboratory tests on equipment and also conduct field studies with picklers for better data gathering. In addition, laboratory tests will be conducted using a cannon firing balls at a stationary paddle.
“Pickle paddles are allowed to be weighted,” said Lloyd Smith, Director of SSL and a professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University. “But nobody has quantified the effect of weight on performance. I think we will find that adding that weight is a hack around their standard.”
Selkirk Sports Leading the Way
Selkirk Sports will provide a $65,000 grant to the university’s SSL to get the research—likely the first of many—underway.
“What is their elasticity, their hardness, or their durability? How do they heat up when a ball impacts the surface?” Smith further stated. “These are the driving questions of the ball performance.”
Washington State University’s SSL has been studying bats and balls in several sports—baseball and softball, in particular—for quite some time now, and Smith anticipates new avenues to explore after his team’s pioneering research on pickleball dynamics.
“If this ends up being similar to softball and baseball, there are going to be other questions that come up, other innovations that need examination and then there may be opportunities to study those as well,” said Smith. “If there are challenges or interest to things we can study and write papers on, then we’ll keep going with it.”
For Selkirk Sports, the results of the SSL’s research could theoretically inform the company on how to further improve their already top-of-the line paddles.
Just recently, Selkirk Sports unveiled the LABS Project 008, a groundbreaking pickleball paddle featuring Selkirk’s first high-density PureFoam core technology. With help from the SSL, they could break even more ground on other innovations.
