For the past three weeks my group has been working on a video about the physics of a soccer corner kick. We have learned a lot about projectile motion and the mechanics of soccer, and used our knowledge to make this video.
Two major physics concepts we used in our video are force of impact and velocity vectors. Force of impact was determined when we calculated how hard the average high school player kicks a soccer ball. We used the formula F*t = m*v. Solving for force gives f = mv/t. We also used velocity vectors to calculate that the vertical velocity on a 170N kick taken a t a 35 degree angle would be 11.47 m/s and the horizontal velocity would be 16.3 m/s. Using the Pythagorean theorem this gives a total velocity of 19.93 m/s. We also used concepts from our applied calculus class to factor in drag on the soccer ball, greatly increasing our calculation accuracy.
One thing that went much better in this project than in previous projects was our time management. We stayed ahead of the deadlines and made sure we meet all of our goals. This was very critical to our project being completed with good quality. Another thing we did well was stay on task. We used almost all of our class time working on our project unlike with the Rube Goldberg machine.
Something our group could have done better is facilitation. Two group members seemed to do 99.999999999% of the work which left very little for the others. Next time I will work on letting other members do more of the work. Another problem was differing positions on what the video should focus on. Some members wanted it to be more entertaining, and some more educational. In the end we were able to compromise and do both.