BALTIMORE — When you get a call from the Baltimore Orioles, you pick up.
That's exactly what two Johns Hopkins University students did when they stepped up to the plate with an innovative solution for America's favorite pastime.
"We provided [the Orioles] a better way, much quicker way to view the profile for the bat as you get all the bat's dimensions and diameters. And they're really excited about it," explained Xiaojian "Jason" Sun, a Masters student at Johns Hopkins.
VIDEO: Orioles bat tech, asteroid grinder among creations at Hopkins ‘Design Day’
Sun and project teammate Kevin Wu created a method for measuring baseball bats using computer technology—faster and better than the manual way—to modify them for the best outcome at the plate.
"You just take a photo on your iPhone, and within minutes, within seconds you can just get the result," Sun described.
"It's really easy to replicate, really easy to operate on," Wu said, "And that's something the Orioles are looking for."
On the Hopkins Homewood Campus, there aren't many times you'd want to be inside on a beautiful day. On Tuesday afternoon, "Design Day" for the Whiting School of Engineering is one of them. The event showcased over 200 answers to real-life questions—some down here on Earth, others up in the stars.
For students Jacob Hammond and Jonik Suprenant, an asteroid mining grinder was the culmination of many sleepless nights.
"It's very rewarding to see that we were able to get our prototype to work, and it's come together," Hammond said.
"The dust we're looking to achieve is the same grain size as flour, so super fine, and if you can imagine turning a rock into flour is no easy feat in about a foot of space," said Suprenant.
Their test rig ensures the system does not rely on gravity to feed the grinder—a critical feature for space applications. It's out of this world, both physically and conceptually, with practical uses in outer space.
"These are semester-long and year-long projects with spectacular results," Wu noted.
Science may be the answer to the O's woes this year. And designs displayed throughout the room on Tuesday may launch us all into the future someday. We'll be able to say it happened right here in Baltimore.
READ MORE: Johns Hopkins student researchers partner with Orioles to analyze bats with AI, amid Torpedo fad
This report was converted from its original broadcast television script to a web article with the assistance of an AI tool. A WMAR-2 News journalist thoroughly reviewed its contents before posting it to our website.
