Hi all, I am new to badminton central and nice to meet you. I am from Hong Kong and I have been playing badminton for around 6 year now. I have a pain point in this sports and I would like to discuss a little bit about that. It is that it seems there is a lack of standard in badminton shuttlecocks. In Hong Kong there are many choices in shuttlecock and I often have problem on which one to choose. I searched online, all the reviews I found about shuttlecock, is more qualitative, rather than quantitative. I wonder if it would be interesting if a "quality/performance standard" could be set up about shuttlecock? Here are some testing criteria on my mind: 1. flight locus of shuttlecock, against N number of long high clear shots it would be flight lines like the following one. So the testing result would be many lines, for example, line after 20hits, 40 hits...200 hits, and how such line changes over time 2. stiffness of the shuttlecock head, against N number of long high clear shots 3. rotation behavior of the shuttlecock. All these would involve engineering and automation efforts to remove human factors, but I think it is doable. Such test could be repeats across difference shuttlecock brands, hopefully such testing report can help us to decide which shuttlecock to buy. Do you think such standardized "review" would help you on what shuttlecock to choose?
I like your idea, however there are too many different variations of shuttlecocks and I think a more appropriate standardisation which they sorta use at the moment is the quality of feathers used and the quality of the cork. I believe the combination of the two determine all of the above you describe. So it would be nice to know if the cork is a full one piece cork or a composite and if it is a composite, what material it is made up of. This affects durability and control especially in net shots. With regards to feathers they already grade them from A+ to low grade feathers, so this helps. Kindest regards, -Ajay- Quote of the Day Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.