Constructing a corner cube or retroreflector instead of the conventional wall would allow solo practitioners of the sport to get their exercise.

A single large retroreflector would return the ball at the same angle at which it was thrown, but at varying distances depending on how close to the vertices of the reflector.

Alternatively, a wall tiled with suitably sized reflectors should work to return the ball arbitrarily close to the pitched location, with the occasional whacky return when the ball happened to hit an external joint.
-- csea, Sep 02 2014

Retroreflector http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Retroreflector
For reference [csea, Sep 02 2014]

I like the idea, but wouldn't the individual corner cubes have to be very big, to reduce the proportion of times on which the ball hit an edge?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 03 2014


There would be a balance between distance between serve and return (greater with larger geometry) and proportion of edge returns.
-- csea, Sep 04 2014



random, halfbakery