Physics of Sports

Physics of Basketball

Our project was to make a video explaining the physics aspects of a simple sports motion to help advise people playing said sport. We chose one of the simplest, yet most complicated parts of basketball, a free throw. Some of the most amazing basketball players such as Dwight Howard and Shaquille O'Neal were great overall, but were specifically awful at free throws. Of course this didn't stop them from becoming professional players, but it did have an affect on their NBA careers. So, my group and I set out to find the most effecient way to shoot a basketball, we created a video discussing the form, physics, and calculations of how to properly do so.

Reflection

I enjoyed this project more than my previous one because I felt like I had more opportunities for creativity and self expression in the video. Because we had to plan every portion of the video we finished quite early and therefore had a lot of time to edit the video to make it the best it could be. I do feel like it was similar to a real filming project with a script writer, actors, and a director. I believe the work was split evenly which is something I am still learning to cooperate with. This time however, my group was all girls and we had minimal experience in basketball; by that I mean we all played about 1 or 2 years in elementary. At first it was very hard to give recommendations on a sport we don't play, so we had to get creative. We found the best shooter of our group and had her shoot as many times as she could. We compared all the times she made the shot and picked the one with the best form and used that shot for calculations. We improvised the best we could considering we didn't have a professional to use to calculate. It all worked out in the end and I believe my group was able to provide very accurate and valuable information on how to shoot a free throw.