Gathered into groups of three to four, students were to create a video describing the physics of a certain step or move in a sport to improve the performance of players. We were given weeks to construct our video and upload it to Youtube for our presentation night. Lucky for us, my group had Emma, a Volleyball player, so choosing a sport was not difficult. We narrowed the choice down to hitting a volleyball simply because we couldn't explain the whole game. Evan, Emma, and I worked very well together as we completed the assignment and didn't have many problems.
My Video:
Physics Concepts:
During our video you may not have recognized some equations or variables used so below is an explanation of each one and how we used them.
Force of impact: Force of impact is the force exerted from an object colliding with another or impacting another. Since force of impact is a force, it is measured in Newtons. It is represented by Fi and is used in the equation (P=J) or (mv=Ft). In our clip of Emma hitting the ball, her hand had a force of impact of 287.78N as shown in the video.
Time of impact: Time of impact is how long an object is in collision with another object. Time of impact is measured in seconds. It is represented by the variable Ti and is also used in the equation (mv=Ft). In our clip of Emma hitting the ball, her hand was in collision with the ball for 0.016 seconds so Ti was 0.016s.
Vertical Velocity: Vertical velocity is the speed of an object in an upwards or downwards motion. Velocity is measured in m/s and vertical is just the movement direction. Vvert is the variable representation and can be used in the equation (V=agt). In our video we used the vertical velocity of 10.16 m/s.
Horizontal Velocity: Horizontal velocity is the velocity of an object in a sideways motion. Velocity is still measured in m/s and it is now moving horizontally. Vhoriz is the variable representation and can be used in the equation (V=d/t). In our video we used the horizontal velocity of 14.63 m/s.
Total Velocity: Total velocity is the velocity of an object on the path the object has taken. Once again this is a velocity so it is measured in m/s but in any given direction. Vtotal is the variable representation. Since velocity can be represented as a vector quantity total velocity can easily be solved when given a horizontal and vertical velocities. Having horizontal and vertical vectors will form a right triangle with the total velocity. Using the Pythagorean Theorem with these vectors (Vvert^2 + Vhoriz^2 = Vtotal^2) we could concur that the Vtotal was 17.8 m/s.
Reflection:
It is safe to say that my group did an amazing job with this project. Of course we were stronger on some days than others but the whole project was tremendously fun and I got to learn more about my teammates and how to work with them. Many things went well (not the most brilliant thing that I have written but it's true). Fortunately, Evan was pretty familiar with Imovie so he was a great help putting the video together and editing the clips as well as adding music. I pretty much was a helping hand with whatever needed to be done. I filmed some clips, helped throw the ball, and did whatever was necessary for our groups success. Emma was obviously a major help to our group because she is a Volleyball player so she brought a ball, gave ideas for clips, found great footage of other people playing, and did a great job explaining how the game is played. The three of us worked very well together. Some days we had some rough times figuring out what to do. While preparing to start taking clips, finding an area for them was rather difficult. We had to find somewhere that we were allowed to be in, open, and not very distracting. We already decided to do voice-overs rather than talk through the wind so we thought we were set. I, being the best Volleyball player in the world, found it hard to set Emma up with a perfect hit for our video so this took very long. For voice-overs we had to find a quiet room so we chose the hallway outside of our classroom. Every time I was doing a voice-over somebody would open or close a door making us try more times than I hoped which caused my voice-overs to be very enthusiastic. Notice how I use sarcasm just thinking about it. Moving past the bad things I really learned a lot from this project. I learned pretty much everything that I know now about Volleyball because I was very unfamiliar with the sport. I also learned how to use Imovie which wasn't that hard. I learned that trying to annoy Evan at some points of the project actually annoys Evan (who would have thought that). I mainly learned that being off task sometimes does not mean that your group will not succeed. My group was just simply amazing; there is no other way to put it (there are actually infinite but it sounds good to say that).