Project Overview: Mr. Pitti, the athletic director at San Marin, tasked us with creating a video that could educate players about the sport and how to improve techniques using concepts of physics. The goal of our project was to find the physics behind a specific motion in a sport. In our case, we found the physics behind a golf swing. We started by hitting a golf ball and measuring the distance that it traveled. Next we had to convert it into meters. This is required before we can use it to find our concepts of physics. For our next step we measured the time that the golf ball spent in the air. We used our measurements to help us find the momentum, force on the ball, and the work done by the club. These new measurements were implemented into our video to help explain the physics behind our movement. Lastly we took our film, measurements, and equations, and put them all into our video.
Concepts: There were many concepts that we had to learn and understand before we could fully complete this project. Here is a list of some of the concepts and what they are.
1) Velocity-speed with a given direction. Because velocity is included with a direction, it differs from speed, so you can have both a negative and positive velocity.
2)Projectile Motion-is a form of motion in which an object or particle is thrown, and moves along a curved path under the action of gravity. This path is followed by a parabola, an open symmetrical plane shaped like an arch.
3)Force-is a push or pull on an object. A common calculation to solve for force is mass times acceleration.
4) Friction-the resistance that an object or surface encounters when when moving over another.
5) Momentum-the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured by multiplying its mass and velocity.
6) Friction-the resistance that an object or surface encounters when moving over another.
7) Acceleration-a change in the rate or speed of an object.
Reflection: I have gained and learned many skills from this project and enjoyed every bit of the process. Personally I thoroughly enjoyed shooting the video and collaborating with my group to improve it even more. Our group, which consisted of Nolan, Ciara, Matt, and myself, worked very well together. We all had a similar idea for our video. The video, we decided, had to have all the requirements and concepts, but had to be done in a funny manner as well. We were able to put all our different skills together, Nolan's video editing skills, my filming skills, Matt's sports skills, and Ciara's creative imagination. Throughout this project I learned a few things about myself. Namely that I greatly enjoy filming and working with new people. This is a great skill to have because in life we won't always be able to work with who we want. We could have managed our time better, as we often found members of the group getting distracted and not helping after our first period. However this being said, we fixed this about halfway through the project and when we did work, the group got a substantial amount completed. Our final product came out great and I'm very proud of it. My role in the group was mostly filming and solving the math side of things. Although not the most exciting part of the project, it was crucial and helped us create a final product we could all be proud of. This project did exactly what it was meant to, it improved my understanding of how physics affect everything around us.