In this unit, we were supposed to create a video of the physics of sports. My group consisted of Eva, Nathan, and Connor. We began by brainstorming a list of sports we could do - skydiving, cricket and curling were some of our ideas. We decided on Quidditch, which is a game created in the story of Harry Potter and became a real sport.
For our sport, we had to choose one action in the sport to teach everyone how to do better. For the game Quidditch, our action would be to throw a quaffle, or a ball about the size of a volleyball, to score as many points as possible.
We planned out our project steps: write a script, create a storyboard, then film and edit the video.
After choosing our sport and action we began creating a storyboard. We planned out the shots we needed to demonstrate the game and the action of throwing a quaffle. (In the end, we discovered that we still needed more shots than we planned because our voice overs were too long, so we added clips of Connor running around with the quaffle.)
Our next step was to film the planned shots, most of which were a lot of side shots of Connor throwing the quaffle into the hoop. While getting these clips, we also measured the distance between Connor and the hoop so we could include this data in our calculations. Nathan and I worked on the calculations, while Eva and Connor edited the video.
To give us more accurate results in the calculations, we recorded four different trials of Connor throwing the quaffle and took the average of the four times. For the calculations, we first calculated the mass of the quaffle, which was .27 kg. We then calculated the acceleration of the quaffle when it left Connor's hand towards the hoop by using the equation a=vt (the variable t for time is how long the ball is on Connor's hand) and arrived at 12.05 m/s^2 for the acceleration. We calculated the ball's velocity by using change in distance over change in time = 13.85 m/s. We then used the equation Ft=mv to find the force of the ball, which was 70.61N. The ball was thrown at an average degrees of 30. (Here's a friendly tip: If you want to throw the ball farther, you should aim for a 45 degree angle, and release the ball above your ear.)
Concepts we used in our Physics of Sports Video
Vectors - Arrows with length and direction. An example of a vector is velocity, because velocity is speed with a direction. We used vectors while doing our calculations for our vector diagram that is in our video.
Horizontal Motion - The movement of an object on a flat plane. In our video, we found the horizontal motion by using V=d/t to find the horizontal motion of the quaffle moving in the air.
Vertical Motion - The movement of an object perpendicular to the earth's surface. We also used vertical motion in our vector diagram for how the quaffle moves through the air.
Velocity - How fast an object moves in a certain direction. It is calculated by dividing change in distance over change in time. We calculated the velocity of the quaffle, which was 13.85m/s.
Force - The push or pull of an object that causes change in motion. It is calculated by multiplying mass times velocity over time. (F=mv/t) We found the force of the ball while traveling through the air which was 70.61N.
Acceleration - The speed up or slow down of the motion of an object. We calculated the acceleration of the ball moving through the air by using the equation a=change in velocity/change in time. Pits and Peaks of our project
I think at the end of this project, we were able to make an informative and educational video. This was my second STEM project, and had a few pits and peaks. My first pit was our time management skills. Like our Rube Goldberg Machine, we didn't have everything completely planned out to the actual time of the video. Since we didn't plan out the talking parts to go with the video clips, we had too much dialogue and not enough footage. This meant we had to add about thirty seconds of additional clips of Quidditch or diagrams at the last minute to make sure there weren't any black screens while we were talking. My first peak was how equally we were able to divide our work. Eva worked on most of the editing, Nathan and I did the calculations and the voice overs, and Connor did the filming/acting. We worked fairly efficiently, but still had to go in during lunch to finish the final touches. The only time we were all on one task was when we had to record our trials. We all had to work on this task because we needed someone throwing the ball, someone recording the ball in slow motion, someone recording the ball in real time, and someone to hold the hoop. My second pit was our sport. Even though Quidditch is original and no one has done it before, that's one reason why it was harder. Since we couldn't find the right ball anywhere, we didn't start filming until one day after everyone else. We ended up giving up on finding a quaffle, so we just used a volleyball from the other group. Also, when we got stuck on any calculation, we couldn't look at a past student's video because no one else had done Quidditch. My second peak was how everyone was able to stay on task. I originally thought people wouldn't be able to work on the video, since it was only on one laptop. We managed to work together and do something related to the video with voice overs, diagrams, and filming.