Week 4: Meet with a Pro

We had our private pickleball lesson with Laurel this Wednesday at the GreenTree SportsPlex. We’ve learned a lot through the 2-hour session, from how to choose your own paddle, hitting techniques, to playing strategy and how to find more people to playtest. It was a very informative lesson and she was very kind to volunteer to be our consultant for any pickleball related question.

What We’ve Learned

• About this sport
  • Mostly played in doubles
  • Pro players quickly transition the game to NVZ(non-volley zone, kitchen) and tends to have long rallies
  • The core of this sport is how well you can play near the kitchen, with such short reaction time
• Terminology
  • Rules
    • Side out
    • Foot fault
    • Golden pickle / pickled
  • Techniques
    • Drive – A forehand shot hit straight and low, deep into the opposing backcourt
    • Dig – Defensive shot usually in the ‘Transition Zone’ with paddle low, split stance very wide, and absorbing the power of the offensive shot so that the ball can be reset into the kitchen as an ‘unattackable ball’.
• 75-25
  • Team A is already at the kitchen line while Team B is still at the base line, then Team A is 75% likely to win that rally.
• Serving team: S&S (serve and stay)
  • Stay near to the baseline after serving in case your opponents return it deep
  • Use chops or dinks to buy yourself time to gradually move up
• Receiving team: R&R (return and run)
  • Run up to the kitchen after returning and prepare to tack
  • Keep the pressure by returning deep and hold the opponents at the base line
• Train by oneself
  • Play in front of a wall just like tennis – instant feedback
  • Ball machine
  • Cones on the court for aiming
• Advanced Strategy
  • Side picking
    • Weather, wind, crowds
  • Serve picking
    • Golden pickle

Updates

Art

Model of the first formal court

Team photo

Design

Designers are were working on the experience flow for our first 2-week demo and also finalizing the technical document for ball motion.

Programming

On programming side, Sion had successfully set up the networking workflow using Photon and made a simple version for hitting, which still needs a lot of tweaking after Chao had finished the document. Aiden was working on implementing the singles rule and boundary check. We will combine their work into a playable demo next week.