Physics of Sports Video

MOV_1094.MOV

Overview

In this project, we had to film & edit a video that taught people how to do a specific action related to a sport & the physics behind it. My group chose the action of kicking a football field goal, largely because one of my teammates was on the football team. Our first step was making a storyboard. We then began the process of filming all the necessary shots to complete our video. That took a while, as we faced several challenges such as poor video quality and restricted filming time. After we finished filming, we worked on calculating the physics behind each step while simultaneously creating a script for the video's voiceover. Another group member was working on editing our video throughout this time. Our final step recording that voiceover and adding it to our video. This took a lot of editing because we elected to adjust what we were saying so we could get a higher grade. Our final video is shown above.

Physics of Sports Script

This was our final draft of our script. It went through a lot of editing to include all the necessary information.

This is the image of all of my calculations. I mainly found the angular momentum, air resistance, angle of the football, and the force of impact.

Our Process (More In Depth)

Our first step in this project was creating a storyboard. We made around 15 post-it notes, each representing a different shot. We included information like the camera angle & possible voice-overs to get a solid plan. As expected, our final product ended up veering off the original storyboard slightly, as we had to keep making changes along the way. Our next step was filming. The member of our group who had the most football experience was the one demonstrating a field goal kick, while my teammate and I rotated filming. Our final group member assisted in setting up for the kick & retrieving the football each time it was kicked. A struggle we faced during this step was exchanging the footage with each other. Because our phones were very different models, the videos we sent to each other would turn out extremely blurry and distorted, so we could only film on one phone. After filming, my group split up to do our own work. One group member focused on editing the clips, another worked on creating the script, and I worked on completing the calculations. My group decided we wanted to find most of the level four calculations, so it took a lot of time for me to figure out how to do that, because I wasn't familiar with calculating a few of the concepts. The script & the video editing went fairly smoothly, although we had to adapt and turn away from the storyboard when we were running out of time. Our final step was recording each of my teammates saying their part of the script, and putting it into the video. We had to redo the voice-overs multiple times because we struggled with finding a place to record that didn't have a lot of noise. However, we were able to successfully create a pretty clear and unique video in the end, so I was happy with this project.

Content:

Force of Impact: We found that the force of impact of the foot's collision with the ball when it was kicked was 101.9 Newtons. We then converted that into 23 pounds to make it more comprehensible. We used the equation mass times velocity equals force of impact times time.
Horizontal, Vertical, & Total Velocity: We used the Pythagorean Theorem to find the vertical, horizontal, and total velocity of the football. We found that it had a vertical velocity of 6 meters per second, a horizontal velocity of 8 meters per second, and a total velocity of 10 meters per second
Conservation of Momentum: To understand the conversation of momentum, we compared the momentum of the ball before the collision with the momentum after the collision. To do this, we used the equation mass times velocity.
Elasticity: Using our understanding of conservation of momentum, we calculated that the elasticity of the collision was 98%, meaning 2% of the energy going into the collision had been lost. We concluded that this energy likely went to friction or sound. Considering that no realistic collision can be 100% elastic, the collision had an impressively low amount of friction.
Air Resistance: We found that the ball had an air resistance of 0.6N while it was flying through the air after being kicked. We then converted this to a more comprehesible unit of 0.13 pounds of force.
Spin/Rotation: We also calculated the spin & rotation of the ball, and found that it had an angular momentum of 27.35 kg(m^2)/s while spinning through the air. Unfortunately, we were unable to convert this to less complex unit.
Angle: We found that the angle of the football relative to the group after my teammate kicked it was around 30 degrees. We found this by taking a protractor and using it to analyze a photo we took of the football's path in the air.

Reflection:

In this project, I believe I had a strong work ethic & collaboration skills. Because my team was all reasonably productive, I didn't need to take a leadership position in this group. However, I still think I fully carried my weight. I was willing to do whatever needed to be done, whether that be filming, calculating, or setting up the football for my teammate to kick it. I think my work ethic especially showed when I worked on calculating the physics behind each step. A few of the terms I was calculating, such as angular momentum & air resistance, were terms I was mostly unfamiliar with physics-wise, so I had to do extra research and seek help from my peers and teachers to learn how to calculate them properly. I think I did this successfully, and I enjoyed learning something new in the process. I also think I had good collaboration skills. It was fairly easy to get along with this group, as we all had the main goal of achieving a high grade on the project. Even when we faced issues with technology and had to redo a lot of our project, I never complained or grew frustrated with them. When our teammate had a difficult time kicking a field goal for us to film because of heavy wind, we still didn't get frustrated, and we just kept resetting it until we finally got the successful shot.

Somethings for me to work on improving for the next project is managing time well & taking on more of a leadership role. In the beginning of this project, my group was pretty much on track, but somewhere in the process we fell behind, and ended up finished slightly later than was planned. Although we still got the video in on time, it was a bit of a rush in the end, especially with all the unexpected retaking that we had to do. We kept finding things wrong with our video that we would have to fix, and so it took us longer than expected to turn it in. Next time, I might plan our time more carefully and take into account that things probably won't go perfectly. Although this particular group didn't require me to take on a leadership position, I still believe it is a good thing for me to develop. All of my group members were able to be productive and do what was necessary without a leader telling them to, but that won't always be the case. In the early stages of planning, I didn't share out as many ideas as I would have liked, which is something I should also work on next time.

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