Sweet spot

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

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.

porting 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.

Although the sweet spot gives a powerful and clean shot, peak ball speed occurs nearer the tip of the racquet where the racquet is travelling at greater speed.

Non-sporting use

The term is now 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.

Human talents

People often refer to their sweet spot when discussing their ability to perform some task or sport, meaning some element of the task that they do particularly well.

Body piercing

"Sweet spot" in body piercing refers to the optimal place to pierce the nasal septum. This spot is 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 is better than usual. This can refer to wireless computer network signals or conventional radio transmissions.

Paintball

In paintball, sweet spot refers to setting paintball marker input pressure so that the valve yields the highest gas efficiency per shot. Finding the sweet spot involves charting the muzzle velocity at various pressures, usually in 25 psi increments, to locate 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 markers.

Trigger bounce and ramping

Some players refer to "sweet spot" as holding the trigger at the critical point where the marker 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 cycle rate. Trigger bounce may be permitted in fields and tournaments that allow ramping, a trigger mode where markers slowly switch from true semi-automatic 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 with chronographs, most of which have a balls per second feature.

Trigger bounce in electronic markers 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 marker will cycle), or trigger delay (minimum time delay before the marker will cycle). Mechanical markers are devoid of this problem, and must have special force-return, reactive 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 are prohibited at most paintball fields and in tournament play.

Requirements Management

The term is used in requirements management to refer a requirement that has found a perfect balance between ambiguity and understandability.Fact|date=August 2008 Such requirements are not "over specified".

peaker 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