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Basketball

What is the trajectory of a basketball?

Level :

High school

Author:

FizziQ

In this activity, the student studies the trajectory of a ball by kinematic analysis of a video of a shot. He will find an appropriate scale and then point to the different positions in FizziQ kinematic analysis module . By adding the calculated positions to his notebook, he will determine the type of trajectory of the ball, then using the smoothing tool, he will calculate the equation of the curve and confirm his intuition about the shape of the curve.

➡️ Find this activity in the Activities Catalogue of the FizziQ app
(Activities > ➕ > Activities catalog)

Learn more

The video can be found in the kinematics library of the FizziQ website : https://www.fizziq.org/en/cinematique


The activity protocol is the following :

1. Study of the trajectory of a basketball during a shot

2. In the Tools menu, select Kinematics Study, then Video, then FizziQ Resources

3. Find the basketball video and copy the link

4. Go back to the Cinematic menu and tap on Internet, then tap on the Copy icon

5. The video appears on the screen // To do the kinematic analysis, determine the scale by placing the origin and the end of the ruler. What reference are you going to use for the ruler?

6. Position the ruler, then enter its ruler length and press Point

7. You can change the interval between images, we advise you to enter 176 milliseconds which corresponds to three images

8. Why is it useful to adjust the gap between images?

9. Point the positions of the ball by moving the target over the skier and then tapping the screen to validate the position. To better point, you can hide the previous positions by pressing the eye icon

10. Repeat the pointing for the whole sequence and press Results

11. Select time and x and y positions and press Notebook

12. The data is added to your notebook where you can analyze it

13. What is the trajectory of the ball?

14. By pressing the Interpolation button at the bottom right, you can smooth the trajectory and find its equation

15. What is this equation and its degree?

16. Does this calculation allow you to confirm the shape of the curve?

17. Is your score very accurate?

18. Document your analysis by adding text and photos and share it!

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