Physics of Hitting a Gold Ball

Script and Storyboard

Making the Video

In our video, we wanted to explain, as clearly and detailed as we could, the steps and physics of hitting a golf ball with a driver club and how to hit it to your advantage. To make our video, we first had to figure out what we would like to do as our sport. One of my group members suggested golf because that was a sport that they played often and enjoyed. Next, we started the storyboard, and tried to get at least 15 steps on there. After that, we started filming. Since there was no golf course on campus, we agreed to film some of our footage on the school's softball field and then over the weekend, one of my group members would film a few shots of them hitting at McGinnis Golf Course. Once all of the footage was gathered, we edited the clips and put them together in iMovie. We added music and voice-overs from reading our script, made subtitles for some of the unit conversions and calculations, and finally uploaded the final product to YouTube.

Calculations

The image above shows the calculations we made in our video. The concepts used were mass, velocity, force, time, and angle hit. Below are the final answers we got for the calculations and below that are the concepts explained with the numbers we used.

Mass of ball: 0.046kg = 0.1lbs

Force of Impact: 1000N = 222lbs

Time of Impact: 1/500s

Vertical Velocity: 24m/s = 54mph

Horizontal Velocity: 38.5m/s = 86mph

Total Velocity: 45.6m/s = 100mph

Average Hit Angle: 32.4 degrees

Time of average shot (220yds): 5s

Force of Impact

The force of impact is the amount of force an object has when it collides with another object. For our project, the force of impact is when the driver club hits the golf ball off the tee. The club is being swung down at high speeds while your body is also pushing weight into it, so it will go faster. When the club hits the ball, that moment that they are touching, is the force of impact. The club then transfers most of its energy/force into the ball, which allows the ball to be shot up into the air with a high speed. We found that for us, the club had around 1000N, or 222lbs of force when it hit the ball, letting it reach speeds over 100mph.

Horizontal Velocity

Horizontal Velocity is the speed that an object travels at horizontally. It is usually calculated in meters per second (m/s). In our calculations, we found that the average distance that the ball was hit was 200m and the average time was around 5s. We then determined that the horizontal velocity of the ball was 38.5m/s or around 85mph.

Vertical Velocity

Vertical Velocity is the upwards speed that an object has while in motion. Vertical Velocity can also be negative for when an object is moving downwards. When we hit the golf ball, we couldn't tell for sure how far the ball was going up so we calculated it differently than if we had known the height. We calculated the ball's acceleration due to gravity and then the time it rose in the air. That brought us to the answer of 24m/s or 54mph for the upwards speed of the ball.

Total Velocity

The total velocity is the average speed an object is traveling. For our project, the total velocity was the ball's speed while in the air. To find this, we had to use the pythagorean theorm, a^2 + b^2 = c^2. This means squaring the a and b values to find c squared. The horizontal velocity was the a value, vertical velocity was the b value, and the total velocity was the c value. After we squared them, we got 2082.5, but that was not our final answer. We then had to find the square root of that number , which turned out to be 45.6, which means that the total velocity of the ball was 45.6m/s or around 100mph. We can check that this answer is correct by looking at the force of impact. When the golf ball was hit with 1000N, 222lbs, we said that it reached sppeds of around 100mph, and finding the total velocity confirmed that.

Reflection

Overall, I think this project went pretty well and we got everything completed to the best of our efforts and on time. One thing that I really liked about this project was that we communicated a lot and could do more than one thing at once. For example, two of us could write the script and one person could be finalizing the storyboard or planning out what to do next. Also, we filmed most of our video in class, but some of it had to be done on the golf course. We all did a good job communicating who and when would they go to McGinnis Golf Course to film and we made sure that they knew exactly what to film. Back to filming in class, we always filmed on the softball field and coordinated which materials/props/equipment we needed to bring and that worked well because there were never any times that we had to turn back to the classroom to get something.

Another thing that went really well was our organization and quality of material. We made sure that we did everything to the best of our efforts and abilities. We also made sure that our documents and video clips were well organized and easy to find for when we needed them. Making sure our video had good quality shots and work in it was another thing that we made sure of. We wanted to know that what we put into our video would have a good outcome when played as a whole.

One thing we could work on is our time management skills. A few times during the process, we got a little behind where we were supposed to be. Keeping on task and not straying from the project would improve that. One other reason why our time management skills weren't on point was that in the very first few days of the project, during filming time, we didn't have the required equipment, so there wasn't much we could film. Luckily, towards the end of the project, we got our acts together and made sure that we completed it on time.

Another skill that we could work on is our cooperation. There were a few times where we disagreed on how to do things or what to film. Instead of arguing, we could have tried to incorporate everyone's thoughts and ways of going about the project. Although, once we got over those arguments, we worked well, but our cooperation and collaboration still could have been better throughout the project, and for our next one, I am going to keep in mind working on that skill.

I think that our video turned out well in the end, and even though there were a few bumps along the way, we pulled ourselves through and finished strongly.