Creating a User-Controllable Pickleball Serving Machine; A Study on the Cause of Pickleball’s Increase in Popularity and its Effects on the Surrounding Community

This research paper will focus on the causes and effects of the increase in pickleball’s popularity in the United States. The driving question to be investigated is how this increase has affected the elderly population of players, and secondarily, how it has affected the non-player community and the infrastructure associated with the sport. The social construction of technology framework will be applied to answer this question. The expected results will hopefully shed light upon how these kinds of sports come to popularity, as well as how they affect their surrounding communities. Finding an answer to this question could potentially lead to the ability to manipulate these trends, directly affecting their outcomes. This can affect the field of STS in that science will be able to affect the health of certain populations, such as the elderly. By understanding the cause and effect of these trends, industries can manipulate them in order to yield a certain desired outcome. For instance, if there are shown to be generally positive effects from pickleball’s rise, then more trends like this could be influenced to start, and vice versa.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

Technical Advisor: Adam Barnes

STS Advisor: Bryn Seabrook

Technical Team Members: Clara Li, Sharon Lu