Now that the ATD has arrived, we have a lot of work ahead of us. This week was focused on setting up the DAS with the ATD for our tests, particularly with wiring. Our DAS is a National Instrument 9205 NI-DAQmx device. First, we set up a power source for the DAS. Then, we soldered the wires to connect our DAS with 7 pin lemo connectors that attach to the accelerometer outputs from the ATD. The accelerometers send signal (+/-) given an input of excitation (+/-) from our power source of 10V(+/-). The code made last week shows that the DAS is able to read voltages successfully, but ran into issues regarding reading signals from the ATD itself. With help from our advisor, Dr. Reinkensmeyer, we were able to finish setting up the DAS by checking the calibration for the acceleration sensitivity in the ATD. The next step is to figure out a way to streamline all the data we will receive from the DAS into an organized system. With multiple tests for velocity and ball pressure and readings from six accelerometers, a tremendous amount of data is expected that will need to be easily accessible for analysis.

With the DAS ready, we finished the final tasks: mounting the radar gun, inflating the balls to varying pressures, mounting the ATD assembly and DAS, and organizing all the cables in the mount. With those out of the way, testing began.

By Sherilyn Bumatay, Concussive Forces in Competitive Sports