Tutorials¶
Three Jupyter notebooks walk through the core physics interactively. Each one is committed to the repo with full executed outputs, and renders inline in this documentation site. To play with them yourself, click the Colab badge — Google Colab opens the notebook in a free cloud environment and auto-installs pitchphys on first run.
| Tutorial | Topic | Open in Colab |
|---|---|---|
| 03 — Fastball vs curveball | Why a fastball "rises" while a curveball drops more than gravity alone (SPEC §4.1). Compares trajectories from multiple angles; decomposes forces over time. |  |
| 05 — Active spin vs gyro spin | Spin rate alone doesn't determine movement (SPEC §4.4). Holds total spin constant at 2,500 rpm and sweeps active_spin_fraction from 0 (pure gyro) to 1 (pure active). |
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| 09 — Build your own pitch | Guided tour through PitchRelease.from_mph_rpm_axis(...). Builds a custom pitch from scratch, inspects the trajectory data structure, and compares to the nearest preset. |
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Reading order¶
Read 03 first if you want to see Magnus in action immediately. Read 05 to internalize why "high-spin" isn't the same as "high-movement". Read 09 when you're ready to build a pitch parameter by parameter — it's the bridge to programming with the package.
What the notebooks won't show you¶
The notebooks demonstrate the API surface and the physics behavior. For deeper coverage of:
- The four forces and what they do → Physics primer
- Spin-axis conventions and how to interpret tilt → Coordinates
- Choosing the right aerodynamic model for your use case → Aerodynamic models
- Weather and atmospheric effects → Environment & weather
- The full API surface (every public function and class) → API reference
Want to try a slider before reading code?¶
The Streamlit app at pitchphys.streamlit.app covers the same ground as the notebooks but with interactive sliders. The Pitch Playground page in particular is essentially "notebook 09 with sliders".