We just finished our second project of the year for STEM Marin. For this project, we had to create a video showing the physics behind a sport. My team and I decided to show the physics behind a volleyball serve.
Concepts
Horizontal Velocity: Velocity in a horizontal direction and is independent of it's vertical velocity. We calculated the horizontal velocity of the ball in the air and found that it was 12.71m/s.
Vertical Velocity: Velocity in a vertical direction that is affected by acceleration due to gravity. The vertical velocity of the volleyball was 6.86m/s.
Total Velocity: To find the total velocity, you use a vector diagram and the equation a^2+b^2=c^2. The total velocity of the ball was 14.44m/s.
Vector Diagram: A diagram that portrays the direction and magnitude of a vector quantity using a vector arrow. It can be used to describe the velocity of a moving object during it's motion.
Pythagorean Theorem: It has to do with the three sides of a right triangle. It states that the square root of the hypotenuse is equal to the other two sides squared and added together. You use the equation a^2+b^2=c^2. We used Pythagorean Theorem to find our total velocity.
Force of an Impact: You can find the force of an impact when two things collide. To find the force, you use the equation mv=ft. The force of the hand colliding with the volleyball was 97N(24.45Ibs).
Reflection
The physics of sports video was interesting and informative. This project taught me many things about group work and myself. There were some obstacles that set my group back. One of those obstacles was planning our project out. For this project, we were expose to create a script and storyboard for our video. My group's script and storyboard were very vague and didn't help us in planning and constructing our video. We did not confirm what footage was needed and what we were calculating. This caused us to not have any guidance when creating the video. If we had a better plan of what we were doing, my group and I would have had an easier and more efficient time creating the video. One way to fix this is by having a detailed plan of what my group was doing before starting on our project. Another set back was time management. Since my group had difficulties planning our project, it caused us to stray off task and not get enough work done. This caused us to not complete the project in class, and instead have to go in during lunch and finish. One way to solve this is by deciding what needs to be worked on that day and making sure people stay on task. Even though my group had some problems, there were also many positive things that came out of this project. One was that I learned that I can adapt to certain situations well. For this project, my group and I had to use Windows Movie Maker to make our video. This was an unfamiliar program for me since I usually use iMovie. I had to adapt to this new program figure out how to use it to get the video done. Another positive outcome was learning that I can need to be more flexible with other people's ideas. My group members suggested many ideas that I usually ignored and did not include in the video. From this project, I learned that I need to be more cooperative and try to include or acknowledge other people's ideas.