Aerodynamics Of A Football

Procedure

• 1. Get a football and a trash can

  2. Go fifty feet from the trash can

  3. Throw spiraling passes towards the trash can and record how many hit out the target out of thirty passes

  4. Throw non spiraling passes towards the trash can and record how many passes hit out of thirty

  5. Calculate the number of passes that hit out of how many were thrown into percentages for both spiral and non spiral.

     1. Stats

     2. Non-spiraled Passes Completed in Percentage: 43.3%-BROWN

• • 1. Conclusion

    2. The conclusion to this project is that a spiraling football will hit its target a lot more than a wobbly thrown ball. The spiraling football hit the trash can 26 times out of 30 throws. While the wobbly thrown ball only hit the trash can 13 times out of 30 throws. My hypothesis was correct!

• • 1. Abstract

    2. I play football on an organized team but I also play football with my friends. The reason this project was chosen by me is because football is one of my favorite things to do so why not have my project be fun by making it involve my favorite sport? In my project I am looking at the aerodynamics of a football, or the way a football moves when thrown. What I really wanted to know is that if there is really a huge difference in accuracy when a football is moving in a spiral motion or a wobbly motion, not spiraled. My hypothesis is that there will be a major difference in accuracy because the regular motion in which a football moves, which is a spiral, helps the ball go straight towards the target.

    3. One day a week I set up a trash can at a decent distance from where I was throwing. It was a good enough distance that if the throw was bad it would not hit the target being fifty feet. I threw about ten passes a day at the trash can. All together I threw 30 passes in spirals and 30 passes in non spirals.

    4. The results showed a huge difference in the two passes accuracies. The spiraled pass hit the trash can 26 times out of 30 passes all together which equals 86.6%. The non spiraled pass hit the trash can 13 times out 30 passes which equals 43.3%.

    5. To conclude, my hypothesis was definitely right. There is a huge difference in accuracy when throwing a spiraled pass and a non spiraled pass as the ball hit the can 26 times on a spiral and only 13 on a non spiral. This project was really accurate in showing the difference in accuracy between the two passes. Improving this experiment would take more passes being thrown and different distance at which the passes would be thrown at.

    6. Data Table