sweet spot

 

A sweet spot is a place, often numerical as opposed to physical, where a combination of factors suggest a particularly suitable solution.

When used in the context of a racquet, bat or similar sporting instrument, sweet spot is often believed to be the same as the center of percussion.

Sporting origin

The term originally referred to various pieces of sporting equipment, notably cricket and baseball bats and tennis racquets. When hitting the ball, the bat (for instance) will rebound, but there is a location along the bat where this force is completely balanced out by turning force of the bat. If the ball is hit closer to the end of the bat, the grip of the bat will try to rotate forward out of the batter's hands, whereas if the batter hits it closer to the handle, the bat's tip will try to rotate forward. There is a small "sweet spot" where these two tendencies cancel out. The "sweet spot" location on a given baseball bat varies however it is approximately 6-1/2" from the end of the barrel.

Note that although the sweet spot gives a fairly powerful and clean shot, the point of peak ball speed, for example during serves, is nearer the tip of the racquet where the racquet is travelling at greater speed.

Non-sporting use

The term is now generally used in other fields. For instance, consider bridge-building. Long spans, notably over deep gorges, can be served only by a suspension bridge, while shorter spans can use arch bridges or cantilever solutions. In the middle is a sort of grey area, where the materials needed to construct an arch (for instance) would be about equal to the expense of the cabling needed for a suspension design. This is the "sweet spot" for the cable-stayed bridge that reduces the cabling and the materials.

Body piercing

"Sweet spot" is a term used in body piercing used to refer to the optimal place to pierce a person's nasal septum. This spot is generally located between the nasal cartilage and the bottom of the nose. For more information, see Septum piercing.

Commuting sweet spot

Electronics

The term refers to any location in which the reception of a signal is better than usual. This can refer to wireless computer network signals or conventional radio transmissions.

Paintball

The sweet spot in paintball is a term that refers to setting gun input pressure so that the valve yields the highest gas efficiency per shot. Someone tuning a regulator to find the sweet spot will chart the muzzle velocity at various pressures, usually in 25 psi increments, and continue to refine the chart until the highest peak velocity for a given valve dwell. The actual muzzle velocity is then controlled either through solenoid dwell on electronic valves, or hammer force in mechanical guns.

Trigger bounce and ramping

Some players refer to "sweet spot" as holding the trigger at the critical point where the gun will continually trip and cycle through mechanical kickback and vibration. In tournaments, this effect is called trigger bounce and is prohibited both on most fields and in most leagues due to the unconstrained cyclic rate. It may be permitted in fields and tournaments that allow trigger ramping, a trigger mode where guns slowly switch from true semiautomatic to fully automatic as long as the player continually pulls the trigger past a specified rate. Ramping is more commonly legal, as a ramping gun may be electronically locked to a maximum cyclic rate, ensuring fairness and a sane paint volume from the marker. Trigger modes are checked at chronograph, most of which have a balls per second feature.

Trigger bounce in electronic guns is considered a problem, as trigger ramping is a legal, simpler, and more reliable way to achieve the effect. It may be solved by either increasing the marker's trigger filter (minimum linear distance in trigger return before the gun will cycle), or trigger delay (minimum time delay before gun will cycle). Mechanical guns are devoid of this problem, and must have special force-return, reative triggers, or other mechanisms to achieve a similar effect. These modifications are rare, as they emulate an unconstrained fully automatic trigger instead of a ramp trigger, and naturally, such guns are prohibited.

Requirements Management

The term is used in requirements management to refer a requirement that has found a perfect balance between ambiguity and understandability. Such requirement will not be "over specified". It will be detailed to the right level such that it is understandable and unambiguous.

Speaker Systems

Audiophiles/Recording Engineers will refer to a "sweet spot" as the exact center point between two speakers where an individual is fully capable of hearing the stereo audio mix the way it was intended to be heard by the mixer

See also

• Gridlock

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