Physics of Sports Video
Physics of sports video
Mission:
We were given the task to pick a sport related motion and explain the physics necessary to perform it. In other words, we had to calculate the physics concepts (such as force, horizontal, vertical, and total velocity, etc.) for our selected action. Then, we would film numerous takes of us pursuing it, continuing onto putting all of our data into a compact video.
process:
Our first step of the project was to come up with an action tied to any known sport. During our brainstorming process, I knew that I wanted to come up with something fresh and original. This sparked the idea of basing our video off of a bicycle kick. Here, we were quickly able to come up with the theme of the World Cup. Next, we began to create a storyboard to construct our video out of, leading to a final script. The next 3 days we spent filming with our creative control. Finally, we took our video data and combined it with professional footage of Cristiano Ronaldo's famous bicycle kick during this years world cup. Then we were able to convert the move into calculations.
Physics terms included in our project:
Force (F): The force of something consists of the "push or pull" of an object. This can be calculated by multiplying mass by acceleration and is measured in newtons (N). We included this in our project when we wanted to find out how much force was exerted on the ball from our foot. This gave us an answer of 1760N which converts to about 183 lbs. of force.
Acceleration due to gravity (a): The acceleration due to gravity is the acceleration of an object once acted upon by gravity. Acceleration due to gravity equals 9.8 m/s² but can sometimes be rounded to 10 m/s². We used this in our project when solving for the force of our team mate falling down. Then we used the equation F=ma which we substituted acceleration for acceleration due to gravity. This gave us an answer of 813.5 N which then converts to about 183 lbs. of force.
Velocity (V): Velocity is the rate of covered distance in a direction. This can be calculated by dividing the change of distance over the change of time and is measured in meters per second (m/s). We included this in our project when we wanted to find the total, horizontal, and vertical distance of the ball while it was in the air.
Total velocity (Vt): The total velocity is the overall velocity of an object including both of the horizontal and vertical components to it. This can be calculated by adding the vertical velocity squared and horizontal velocity squared giving you an answer of total velocity squared and is measured in meters per second (m/s). We included this in our project when we wanted to find the balls total velocity while in the air. We then calculated it to get a result of 27.058 m/s which converts to about 60 mph.
Horizontal velocity (Vh): Horizontal velocity is the velocity of an object related to its horizontal motion. This can be calculated by dividing the horizontal distance by it's time and it's measured in meters per second (m/s). We included this in our project when we wanted to find the ball's horizontal velocity while in the air. We then calculated it to get a result of 26.86 m/s which converts to about 60 mph.
Vertical Velocity (Vv): Vertical velocity is the velocity of an object related to its vertical motion. This can be calculated by multiplying acceleration due to gravity by time and is measured in meters per second (m/s). We included this in our project when we wanted to find the ball's vertical velocity while in the air. We then calculated it to get a result of 0.98 m/s which converts to about 2.2 mph.
Reflection:
This project ended up as an overall success for our group but, there was definitely room for improvement especially during the film and design process. Personally, I think that I took part of the lead for our group on this project which might have made me harsher on some of my team mates. There were a lot of moments where we would get off task and it only made our jobs harder when the deadline for the project began to slowly creep closer to us. I think that three areas of work that I should mainly focus on are time management, relevance to our project conversation-wise, and empathy towards my teammates. On another note, I really enjoyed how cooperative we all were to changes in our project. For us, we had to adapt a lot to new adjustments and we all followed through with that very well. I also admired how persistent everyone was during the multiple takes required to perfect our bicycle kick footage. Despite those few bumps in the road, this project has been a very beneficial learning experience for me.