Coleman Rollins

golf 🤝 open source tech
2 hdcp

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

Hey I’m Coleman 👋 and I’m building the worlds first open source, radar based launch monitor for golfers. Golf tech should belong to the golfers 🤝 https://t.co/dXuORGNYXj

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@engineeringolf @CBS “Now to the golf engineer on how modern iron construction can help Jordan speith get out of the fescue for the third time today”

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@jonathanrwall @Kole_MANN Guilty 😄

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@BigChick3nDinna @jonathanrwall @Kole_MANN https://t.co/kcHpdXnESP for the repo!

[Jonathan Wall @jonathanrwall]

Every so often, an equipment pitch lands in my DMs that actually stops me cold. This one certainly did.

@Kole_MANN had a month of PTO to burn last December, no golf to play and a growing frustration with launch monitors that either cost more than a car or flat-out estimated the numbers.

So he bought a Doppler radar and a Raspberry Pi and started building his own. The result is Open Flight—an open-source launch monitor anyone can build at home, with software that's continually refined by everyday golfers who happen to know their way around code.

His pitch to the rest of us? "It's 500 bucks compared to $30,000."

Ball and club speed are dialed. Launch angles are inside half a degree. And the spin rates? Coming along.

Coleman joins the latest @GolfDigest Club Lab podcast to share his origin story. Give it a listen.

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@lawrencejessej 🤝 check me out on IG. Documenting the whole process

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

Hey I’m Coleman 👋 and I’m building the worlds first open source, radar based launch monitor for golfers. Golf tech should belong to the golfers 🤝 https://t.co/dXuORGNYXj

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@PenickFan I know you need a 4th 😏 I happen to be available then

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@engineeringolf @AnymoreJohan 😂😏

[The Golf Engineer @engineeringolf]

A large chunk of my content ideas come from just listening & interacting with you guys in the comments.

Please keep the suggestions, questions & frustrations coming. I bank them all. 🫡

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

What are some of the must-play courses in Arizona? I need a good plan next time I go

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

This might be a hot take, but public and “entry level” private golf courses in AZ are so mid. They’re all the same and have very little imagination. I hope I’m wrong but the sentiment in AZ is very much quantity over quality.

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@engineeringolf Can’t tell you how many time I’ve googled “Titleist driver settings chart” mid rage session

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

@engineeringolf These two bags are a wild ride

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

Every golf tech company guards their code like it's a trade secret.

I put mine on GitHub for free.

$500 in parts, a Raspberry Pi, some radar sensors, and an AGPL-3.0 license. That's OpenFlight.

Golf tech should belong to golfers, not shareholders. https://t.co/xAMOgmz6Qh

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

If you're into golf tech or open source hardware, follow along @colemangolfs

Repost tweet 1 if this was useful 🤝

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

I've spent the last year staring at raw radar data trying to make it useful for golfers.

A Doppler sensor doesn't spit out "ball speed: 150mph." It spits out frequency shifts. Thousands of them. Per second.

Here's what it takes to turn that into numbers you trust:

[Coleman Rollins @colemangolfs]

End result: ball speed, launch angle, estimated spin, and carry distance from two radar sensors and a Raspberry Pi. ~$500 total.

All open source, all on GitHub.

https://t.co/OxfZwhmvbO…