A New Perspective of the Beautiful Game: Material Composition and Aerodynamics of a Soccer Ball
Advisor: Kevyn Adams
Internship Location: Sportsplex, Beijing University (Remote)
Onsite Mentor: Yueheng Lan
As the Copa America and Euros are right around the corner this summer, it would be cool to have the average fan see the sport of soccer through a new lens. This project is interesting on its own because many people understand how aerodynamics may affect how far an object is thrown or kicked in sports but less so about the impact of the materials that make up the ball. Using multiple World Cup balls from different years, I want to show how the material composition of a ball can lead to different movements when kicked. There will be two phases to the project, with the in-person experiment taking place at Sportsplex. I chose Sportsplex as it has an indoor soccer field, while also having a semi-professional league where I will be able to use facilities such as a ball launching mechanism. This in-person approach will give the audience a picture of how the ball would curve and move taken through various motion cameras. Through this, we should be able to quantify and differentiate the ball’s movements, by measuring the angle of degree the ball travels in, the distance each ball travels, and the spin rate of each ball. The simulation will be more theoretical, where I can show the audience how a typical soccer ball would work in a perfect environment. I predict that the material composition, especially the ones with few seams, will be evident in some ball’s movements, such as the 2010 World Cup Ball in the Jabulani, while being less evident in other World Cup Balls, such as the one used in the 2022 Qatar World cup.
Project Blog
Post 1: Introductory Blog: Welcome to My Senior Project Journey!
Hello everyone,
My name is Ian Du and my senior project is about a soccer ball's aerodynamics. In particular, I will study to see if different ball compositions and materials can affect how a ball travels after being kicked. I found this topic interesting as I have been following the sport for a while and wanted to do something related to sports. After learning more about how players complained about the soccer ball used in past World Cups, I eventually thought of this project. These balls include the 2010 Jabulani Ball used in South Africa along with the 2006 Teamgeist Ball used in Germany. Naturally, my curiosity grew, and my project will be able to compare these World Cup balls, such as the ones used more recently in the past World Cup through an in-person test. In this test, I plan to use a ball launcher at the same speeds and then monitor the movement of the ball through cameras. Through this test, I hope to see the difference in movement, if there are any differences, and deliver this news to the general community. I think this project is a unique way to view sports, along with being a great buildup to upcoming tournaments like the Euros and Copa America. Over the past week, I have been learning more about the physics concepts and effects that may play a part in the soccer ball’s movements such as the Magnus effect with the resources and books highlighted in my Senior Project Syllabus books previously bought for the project and recommended by my external advisors. Shoutout Professor Lan! I also went over the processes that NASA and other scientists used to test if the ball had unpredictable movement. Unfortunately, those require higher-level equipment that the general public cannot access such as a Wind Tunnel. However, I will try my best to control the environment where I perform my experiment to ensure the best result.
See you next week!
Week 2
Welcome to Week 2 of my Senior Project Journey!
This week, I encountered the first of many challenges, one that took a while to troubleshoot. The problem occurred when I attempted to run an applet from NASA. Specifically, SoccerNASA allowed me to do all of what I was looking for in a simulation. Unfortunately, the applet was built over 14 years ago with no updates since then. However, when I tried to run it, nothing popped up. I struggled to see what happened only saw some code and animation files unopened in the Zip File. Thinking that it was a technical issue, I decided to go on and search for a different simulation site but to my dismay could not find one. Afterward, I asked my mom if she could troubleshoot the applet and see if something was wrong with the outdated code.
Soon after, we managed to get the simulation to run, and now I will spend the next few weeks playing around with it to get used to it, while also executing my experiment needed to show how a regular soccer ball moves when kicked. This will be for a more controlled constant, which will be used to be compared with the World Cup balls.
When not troubled shooting, I decided to read more about Bernoulli’s Principle through various textbooks that I had from my days taking AP Physics classes though I found it to be rather boring. So, I jumped onto YouTube and watched some more videos and from there I understood the theory more. I also learned more about the Magnus Effect, which is a key concept that I needed to know to explain the phenomenon of unpredictable movement in the ball.
See you next week!
Post 3: Simulation Week
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Week 3 of my Senior Project Journey!
This week I embark on the second phase of my project where I do simulations to establish a controlled constant of how the soccer moves. It took me a while to figure out the experimental parameters and how to use the applet. I eventually got used to the applet and could do my simulation.
My simulation consisted of kicking from the penalty spot, corners, and a free kick outside the penalty box. These were the only places I could simulate a kick from. As for the experiment itself, I used 3 different speeds for kicking: 49, 59, 69mph. For some weird reason, the applet couldn’t round up to 10s. But that is what happens when you are using a 14-year-old, hardly updated site to run simulations on. On each speed, I adjusted the spin rate by the 100s, so see how much the soccer ball can fly off a straight line with the amount of spin. I had spin rates of 0, 100, 200, 300, and 400rpm. This meant there were 37 simulations required and this process has been completed.
So here were the inputs and now we need outputs. For outputs, the simulator had no measurable output. So as a solution, I will scale the net to what a real-life size net is. I then will measure the distance between where the ball landed in the net and the post of the soccer net. I obviously will scale it up, which will allow me to know the distance the ball drifted from the centerline of where the ball was kicked.
The simulation part came and went very quickly and now it is onto planning my physical experiment. See you next week!
Post 4: Simulations and Setup
Hello Everyone,
Welcome to another week of my senior project journey! Last week, I ran the simulations and established a controlled constant of how to expect a soccer ball to move when launched. This week, I compiled the data into one Google spreadsheet and measured the distance the balls traveled off a straight line from the kick position. To determine the distance, I had to scale up the measurements I was taking from the screenshots on my computer.
To scale up the measurements on my computer, I first did a quick search for how big the soccer goal was, and how big the penalty area was. With these measurements in mind, I was able to know how much I needed to multiply to scale my measurements up. Unfortunately, given how every screenshot size was different in size, I had to repeat measurements and scaling 37 times to make sure everything was accurate. It first would begin with how wide the soccer goal posts were for the penalties, which would then be used to divide the actual width of the soccer goal post. The number would be taken and multiplied by what I measured with the distance the soccer ball steered off the straight line of where the ball launcher was placed. The free kick and corner kicks, It was dependent on how dimensions of the penalty area. These scales helped me establish how much spin can affect a ball steering off of a straight line. In the end, everything checked out, as the lower the speed a ball is launched or kicked out, the spin tends to affect the ball steering off course due to rotational kinetic energy and conservation of energy.
After finishing compiling the data, I began designing a setup for how I would conduct my in-person experiment. Going over with Mr. Adams, I pitched the idea of using my current iPhone, my old iPhone, my dad’s iPhone, and a motion camera to watch the ball’s trajectory and flight. The iPhone was the right option in my mind because it has a slow-motion feature, perfect for the experiment. I concluded that I would need to buy just one motion camera as one to be put on the ball launcher itself. As for the positioning, I would have one phone on the side, which would provide a reference frame from the side. There will be another phone that faces the ball launcher as well as the motion camera facing out from where the balls will be launched. It gives me the reference frames in this direction as well as makes it easier to track where the ball’s spin rate. Lastly, I would have the old phone that is on the ground to give a bug’s eye view of the action, giving a unique view and helping to also track the ball’s movements. Mr. Adams also recommended buying a clock, so the actions can be synchronized and help me save time when compiling the data from the actions.
As my Senior Project entered the next phase, I continued to read more about the Magnus Effect and Bernoulli’s Principle through the textbooks I had from middle and high school physics, as well as the books bought for this project.
See you next week!
Post 5: Preparations
Welcome to another week of my Senior Project Journey!
A lot of things have turned for the worse as I try to conduct my in-person experiment. First off, although my 2022 and 2014 World Cup balls are on track to arrive in a few days, the 2006 and 2010 World Cup balls, both ordered from the same person, never arrived and eBay has since taken down the account. This means that I will need to reorder the World Cup Balls. I have scrapped the 2006 World Cup Ball and placed a new order for the 2010 Jabulani ball. It will arrive in a few weeks so my schedule has changed.
Over the next few weeks, as I wait for the new order of the soccer ball, I will begin writing the final report and creating part of my presentation detailing the background and motive for the senior project, the principles that go into affecting the ball movement, and the simulation phase and the control constant. So, when I get to finally conduct my in-person experiment some time in mid-April, I will only have to write the report and make the presentation on this part afterward saving time.
Now onto the positives, the trial run I did with a basketball was a major success. I was easily able to measure the spin rate using the airhole on the basketball, able to measure the speed of the ball and modify the camera angles so it could track the position the ball hits the ground in both the X and Y axes. (X is the direction the ball launcher is launching at, Y is perpendicular to X) It took some modifications and trial and error over a few days, but in the end, I am satisfied with the result and I am ready to execute the physical experiment as soon as the ball arrived.
Now, as the preparations have been done, I will be back to write my report after Spring Break as I will be traveling to visit colleges.
Have a great Spring Break and see you in two weeks!
Post 6: Preparations for the Experiment
Welcome to another week of my Senior Project Journey!
This is the last week before I conduct my in-person experiment!
In the first part of the week, I began making a presentation of the context and reason why I chose this project, the theories and physical effects that go into how the ball moves, and the simulation parts. I did this because it will allow me to save time, especially given that I don’t have much time to evaluate and analyze the data. I played around with the background for a bit but I ended up finding a very nice background for Slidego. Shout out to Slidego, they have lots of nice templates to make your presentation look better. (this is not sponsored) I did some work on it and should be finishing that part in a few days.
Later on in the week, I paid a visit to the new facility where I will be conducting my experiment Walnut Creek, much closer to the previously mentioned Irvine. I was able to get a feel of how the ball gets launched as well as where I should be setting my cameras. I only have one hour to collect the data so I must make sure everything is good to go beforehand.
So over the weekend, with the help of my dad, I went to set up the experiment in my backyard. I got some tripods out, attached the phones to the tripods, and even was able to start and stop the cameras simultaneously. This is massive, as I do not need to find other ways to synchronize the recordings together. We did these tests in my backyard where I was kicking the ball while also getting to record the motion of the ball in slow motion. I will be doing more practice runs later this week where all the balls will be here along with cones that will allow me to measure the vertical distance traveled (how much distance the ball curled off the origin of the launching position).
My experiment will be conducted this Friday.
See you next week!
Post 7: Setbacks.
Welcome to another week of my Senior Project Journey.
Things have turned for the worse, as the soccer ball deliveries that were supposed to arrive last Thursday have been delayed until this week. I was forced to delay my experiment by one week.
Should the soccer ball deliveries be delayed once again, I have come up with an alternative to my project that will make it less interesting: I will use one of the facility's soccer balls. I will then experiment with these two balls. I do not want to jinx it but I will not have to come across that as the balls should arrive soon. For me, eBay is not trustworthy enough when trying to get a product in a limited amount of time.
Meanwhile, as I continue to wait, I have continued to work on my presentation and report. I found the presentation work to be much more enjoyable than the report. I changed the background to a UEFA Champions League background (the biggest competition in European football) as well as added some graphs, pictures, and transitions to make the presentation more appealing while also being able to convey the content to the audience. As for the report, there will be pictures included alongside the procedure, results, and analysis for both the simulation and physical experiment.
These adjustments to my senior project schedule will save me time and I still will be able to finish the senior project on time. This Friday will be the day I finally experiment, whether it is with 3 World Cup balls or one World Cup ball and a regular training ball.
See you next week.
Post 8: The Experiment Week
Hello everyone, welcome to the biggest week of my senior project journey.
Before I conducted my test, I continued to work on my report on the simulation part. I included some pictures but mostly wrote out what my procedure and conclusions were. It was around three pages by the time that part was done.
Now, for the most exciting part of the senior project, the actual physical experiment.
Arriving half an hour early to conduct my experiment, I set up the tripods and prepared cameras to record. However, an unfortunate moment happened when the employee, Andres, came to help conduct and show us how to use the ball launcher
I could not put my World Cup balls into the ball launcher. The fear was that since the balls did not have a coating around them, the World Cup balls could get jammed. My heart sank thinking this project would end there, and I would have to cancel and pull out from the senior project. Luckily, Andres offered the suggestion of operating the machine manually, as he would put the balls into the launcher itself instead of on a conveyor belt. This would make it less likely for the ball to jam.
After setting up my design, where I used cones to pinpoint where the balls were going to land and cameras to track the trajectory of the ball, I was then introduced to how the ball launcher would launch. Sorry to say, the launcher was limited in the speed and initial rotation and only had one option available. The other options involved the ball launching on the ground, which would defeat the purpose of this experiment. I ended up performing 15 launches of the ball and was satisfied with the results. From my eyes, all three balls had a little bit of inconsistency when the ball was launched, though it seemed like the 2010 ball did have the greatest inconsistency.
Now, it is time to collect and analyze the data this following week, to stay on track.
See you next week!
Post 9: Data Analysis
Welcome to another week of my Senior Project Journey!
This past week has been dedicated to just data analysis and reaching conclusions with my experiment. Everything experiment-related is done and now it is just finishing up the report and presentation in the last stages of the journey.
The first aspect I measured from the videos I recorded was the final landing position of the World Cup balls. My grid setup allowed me to sort the final landing position into 9 boxes. As I took my measurements, I saw that the 2022 World Cup ball had the most consistency regarding the final landing position. It was followed by the 2014 ball with slightly less consistency while the 2010 World Cup ball had the most inconsistency, as the final landing position was all over the place. Note that I had to throw out 2 data points as the camera quality was not good enough. I measured 13 final landing spots for each ball.
So, that is that right? Experiment done, the 2010 ball had the most unpredictable nature among the three balls, the more smooth the ball is, the more unexpected the ball is right?
Well, it is quite complicated. Several major errors could impact the ball's trajectory.
Perhaps the biggest error that could happen is the recoil of the ball launcher. The person who showed out the machine, Andres, pointed out there might be some inconsistency when it came to the ball launching out of the machine. When it came to the data recording, I estimated a plus or minus 2 ft out of the 43 ft traveled. I also measured 0.1 seconds of error as I analyzed videos to the one-hundredth of a second. This means the error was very small, coming in at around 5%. I am confident with the data gathered from the speed of the ball. It was relatively consistent.
Now, for the bigger issue: the rotation rate measurement. The rotation rate was very hard to measure, if not impossible at times. I tried analyzing the rotation from different camera angles and the one that was the best was the camera of where the ball was launched, as it was able to cover the entire flight trajectory. Unfortunately, the ball flew far to the point where it was unrecognizable to measure the rotation rate. I tried to modify the rotation rate down to measure the time it takes to rotate 90 degrees and got the data points, although the error percent was very big. Just being off by 0.01 seconds can make a huge difference in terms of the rotation rate so that is something I am not confident in publishing.
So although there is evidence that the more smooth a ball is, the more unpredictable the ball would be as well as the error of the recoil of the ball launcher, having a big error when it came to measuring the rotation rate makes this experiment conclusion in my eyes, inconclusive.
Post 10: Last Blog
Hello everyone, welcome to the last week of my Senior Project Journey.
Yes, it is sad that my journey is coming to an end though there are several positives to takeaway.
First, the agenda is the same as last week: continue working on the final report and presentations. The rough drafts should be done early this week with the final edits made towards the end of the week. Everything will be done and submitted on May 18th, the day of the presentations.
Now for the takeaways and reflections.
The best part of this journey was the day of the ball launching, I had fun just walking around launching the World Cup balls. This is something that will live with me for a long time as I do my research.
The Senior Project has also allowed me to research a topic I love, where I was able to visualize sports from a physics perspective. I never was able to freely design and follow through an experiment so this was a first for me. Through this project, I have also gained research experience, something that I would need in college.
Perhaps the most important thing I learned from this process was using Google Excel. Before this experiment, I had very little experience and knowledge of using Google Excel. Now, I can make graphs, calculate averages and standard deviations, and use other basic functions. I still have a long way to go though!
Although my conclusion to the experiment was inconclusive, maybe it would be better to play the game for fun instead of attempting to quantify ball trajectory. After all, most of us including myself watch sports as entertainment rather than for science.
Speaking of sports as entertainment, I hope I am correct on this, but Germany will win the Euros and Brazil will win the Copa America this year.
Post 11: Follow Up Blog
Hello everyone, this is the follow-up blog to the end of my senior project journey.
This past week, I was really just preparing for the presentation on Saturday. I practice in front of the classroom and friends while receiving feedback for my presentation. As for the report, I continued working on it and completed it, although I will try to incorporate as many suggestions as my internal advisor gives me to the report.
Back to the presentation, I frequently presented to myself, switching words around to ensure the presentation moved smoothly.
On the day of the presentation, I was looking forward to presenting in front of the audience, especially the chance to show off the World Cup balls used in the study.
The presentation came and went and walking out of the room, I felt relieved that the presentation was over and people liked the content I presented.
Looking back, I probably could have tried to advertise my senior project to others, as I didn’t present in front of many people. Next time, I will try to advertise my presentation to my peers, though I also believe that not many people at this school care about watching soccer. It may not been an appealing topic to the people. However, I believe that I will have to make the project much more interesting both with the title and description to attract a larger audience. This is down to me for not going out there and spreading the word about my project while also trying to appeal to and make it much more interesting. This is something that I will need to take away, as I need to make the project more appealing for the public to see and come to watch.