The Volleyball Serve
Content
For this project, Augi, Lydia, Kelsea, and I decided to do a video on the physics behind a volleyball serve. At first we spent some time deciding which sport to do. We eventually decided on the volleyball serve because both Lydia and Kelsea play volleyball and it is easier to calculate than many other actions. We found physics concepts throughout the serve and calculated them.
Concepts
Vertical Velocity
Vertical velocity is the velocity of an object in a vertical direction. This is affected by gravity. The vertical velocity of our ball was 6.86 meters per second.
Horizontal Velocity
Horizontal velocity is the velocity of an object. It is independent of vertical velocity. The horizontal velocity came out to 12.71 meters per second.
Total Velocity
The total velocity is found by using a vector diagram, and then using the Pythagorean Theorem. The Pythagorean Theorem is fund by using three sides of a right triangle. The formula for it is a^2 + b^2 = c^2. We used this and found that the total velocity was 14.44 meters per second.
Force
We found the force of the hand and the volleyball colliding. The equation we used to find this was ft=mv. The force of the collision was 97lbs which comes out to 24lbs.
Reflection
During this project my group and I learned many new things and overcame many problems. At first we didn't know if we were going to used videos that we had taken ourselves, or add in clips that we could find on YouTube. We decided to mix both of these ideas. We used the app Microsoft movie maker because our group didn't have much experience making videos before. We added in clips from YouTube of professionals serving a volleyball, and also used some videos we had taken to show calculations and our form for a serve. Some of the problems we went through were managing our time better and recording our voices. Since we couldn't get a microphone, we ended up using the microphone on the computer. We were in a good place to record so the sound came out alright. Although we went through some problems, our group worked together and our video turned out great.