JOURNAL #2

Info/Theory About Shooting

A free throw, just like any other shot, has the best chance of going in the more arc the shot has. When the ball comes straight down it makes the rim seem bigger than when a shot has more of a straight trajectory. Therefore, the most ideal shot would be one that comes nearly straight down into the basket; however, when shooting that type of shot it is nearly impossible to aim. Rick Barry, former NBA player, was an advocate of shooting a “granny” or underhand shot as his free throws. He shot his free throws underhand and for his career shot around 80 percent. He believes that more professional players, for example Shaquille O’Neal, that shoot a poor free throw percentage should shoot a granny shot even though it looks really goofy. Another advantage of the underhand shot is that it minimizes the drift of the ball. “The trick to keeping the ball moving along a single plane toward the basket lies in ‘minimizing the x-axis motion’… In other words you have to keep your elbows tucked in” (Rist). The underhand shot allows a player to have a lot more control over their shot. The traditional overhand shot requires movement from the wrist, elbow, and shoulder to make it easier for a person to shoot the ball with more error. However, despite all of these positive attributes to an underhand shot both Rist and Barry acknowledge that asking a professional player, or any player, would make them look “kind of stupid”

JOURNAL #3

We have finished the data table and i think the formula for the data table will work, what still needs to be done is the testing of the bouncing ball and the re-filming off it. we filmed data on a camera with a SD card, but we had multiple problems with it. the angles of the camera caused a paralax and the video wasnt valid so we are going to retake the video this monday or tuesday. We have worked well together by the diffrent times we had/ have to meet up so, so far all off the collbrartions and meetups have gone well, and we have worked very well together. All the problems we had were technical so there is a simple solution that we will fix ASAP.

Project Ideas

• To test the diffrence of arc on the outcome of the percentage make or miss.

• To test the diffrence in accelration/ power to make the perfect bounce pass

•  To test the speed percentage that the ball looses during the bounce

• Test the speed drop between each dribble.