What Is Projectile Motion In Basketball

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Projectile motion: mathematics SL IA
Dhruv Chavan

Rationale:
This idea was chosen due to my background in sports. I have played basketball for the past 6 years 2 of which have been in Raha. Basketball is a sport which involves many aspects of mathematics, the main one being trigonometry. I have found that many times during the game I am required to shoot the ball from distances that exceed the three-point line and therefore require more power in order for the ball to reach the rim. In most games I am able to shoot outside the three-point line but after a while the posing team realises my capability of shooting the ball from large distances and start to push me further back to places on the court where I do not have a capability of shooting …show more content…

My interest in this topic came from my interest in the sport of basketball and the first unit in my physics syllabus. Basketball is a sport that revolves around projectile motion with the projection of the basketball when shooting. However, when shooting a basketball the object (ball) experiences two dimensional motion, meaning that there are both vertical and horizontal factors affecting the trajectory of the ball. Thus the aim of this experiment is to gain an understanding of projectile motion in two dimensions, and to find out at what angle of launch the projectile will gain the maximum distance when the motion is two …show more content…

There is no horizontal force acting on the object, therefore ax= 0, thus, x=vxt or ucosθt.
The only force acting vertically is gravity, therefore ay = gravity (g), therefore y= ½ gt2 + ut or y= ½ gt2 + usinθt

Finding the time the object will be in the

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