******************************************************************************* name1: name2: C1: B1: Submit Date: 04/21/2009 Time: 15:28 lastweek: thisweekplan: outsideclass: Equipment: progress: ******************************************************************************* name1: Zizzi name2: Mastropole C1: B1: Submit Date: 04/21/2009 Time: 15:48 lastweek: We verified that our project is feasible by taking preliminary photographs of ourselves hitting baseballs. We did not set up the pitching machine because we have yet to build a container for the camera. Therefore, we were just tossing the baseballs to ourselves and the other person would take the photo. We were still determining proper settings for the lighting and the camera settings, so the pictures are far from flawless. thisweekplan: We plan to fine tune our set up to ensure the utmost quality of the photographs. We do not plan to use the pitching machine yet, but instead we will just use our soft toss method. We will adjust lighting using backdrops and we will find the best positions that give us the best picture quality. outsideclass: We need to finish building the enclosure that will house the camera. Equipment: We need a backdrop, camera, flash unit, cables, and a tripod. progress: Yes we do expect to reach our goal because we think we are pretty far along in our project. We have made good progress and feel like we will have enough time to reach our goals. ******************************************************************************* name1: name2: C1: B1: Submit Date: 04/22/2009 Time: 14:34 lastweek: thisweekplan: outsideclass: Equipment: progress: ******************************************************************************* name1: Mastropole name2: Zizzi C1: B1: Submit Date: 04/29/2009 Time: 12:30 lastweek: Last week, we went to the PEC and took pictures in the batting cage. We did not have an accompanying adult so we were still only allowed to hit softly tossed balls and not pitched ones. We threw a backdrop over the batting cage and turned out the lights and noticed that our pictures weren't turning out as good as we had hoped. We experimented with the ISO on the camera and found an ISO that gave us the best pictures. We also experimented with the camera angle and found a higher angle to be best. In the end, we came out with around 90 photos, with one being the best yet. We took a picture of the baseball-bat collision and captured the bat at a significant angle. We hope to get more pictures like these. thisweekplan: We plan to find an adult who will be up in the cage with us to take pictures. This way, we can take pictures of live pitches and use the enclosure that we have. We need to find out if the enclosure is too scratched up to take pictures. We also need to learn how to use the high speed video camera and see if we can get a video of a full swing. outsideclass: We need to go to the batting cage outside of class in order to work on the project and get the images that we want. Equipment: High speed video camera, enclosure (in the lab already), an adult if he knows of one who is interested, D50, flash unit, backdrop, tripod, and a sound trigger. progress: We are making good progress and expect to get enough pictures to satisfy our goal. We expect great things and we are finding our project to be working out as planned. ******************************************************************************* name1: Zizzi name2: Mastropole C1: B1: Submit Date: 05/04/2009 Time: 15:02 lastweek: Last week we took several high speed videos of the the bats. We started taking video with the older high speed camera but ended up using the Casio because the telephoto lens would not allow us to set up correctly. thisweekplan: This week we plan on analyzing the videos that we already have. If need be we will get back into the batting cages and take more swings. We can't be 100% sure what we need to do next until we see the videos that we have. outsideclass: We need to finish documenting the still photos that we have already taken. We have a large number of them so it will take some time to record them all. Equipment: High speed video camera and the lights to go with it. progress: We do expect to reach our goal. All is going well. ******************************************************************************* name1: Mastropole name2: Zizzi C1: B1: Submit Date: 05/11/2009 Time: 14:49 lastweek: We captured full swings and baseball-bat collisions with the Casio video camera. We had great results and made good progress on our project. We also analyzed the videos and altered our project a bit. We decided we also want to measure the incoming velocity of the ball, the resultant velocity of the ball, and the amount of time the ball stays on the bat. From this we will determine the change in momentum of the ball. From all this data collected, we can have a better idea of which bat transfers the most energy to the ball and ultimately which bat is best. thisweekplan: We plan on taking more videos and taking ones of balls that were pitched. We plan on determining the best way on measuring the velocity of the ball. we also plan on taking the videos and determining the duration that the ball is on the bat by counting the frames. outsideclass: We need to spend time outside of class taking videos because the PEC has very specific times that it will be available. Equipment: Casio camera, flood lights, backdrop, meter stick, third person (adult), and a tripod. progress: We expect to meet our goal and we are making excellent progress. we are getting great footage that will be simple to analyze. When we get the videos of live pitching, we will be set and will not have much else to do. ******************************************************************************* name1: Zizzi name2: Mastropole C1: B1: Submit Date: 05/18/2009 Time: 11:36 lastweek: Last week we took videos of live pitches and collisions between balls and bats. We took about 40 videos and some turned out to be very good in quality and in the content. These videos will be very helpful because they will be very simple to analyze. We took videos of the aluminum and composite bats hitting real baseballs. Last week we also analyzed the videos to find the incoming velocity, resultant velocity, and ultimately the average force during the collisions. we got a good picture of how our analysis is going to work out. We also worked a lot of the spreadsheets for recording our data because we have so many videos and pictures that are tedious to record. thisweekplan: This week we plan mostly to do our analysis and write our draft of our report, but we have to take a few more videos of the wooden and aluminum bats. We plan to take more videos on Tuesday of this week. We plan to finish up our collection of data and spend the most time on our analysis. outsideclass: We need to stay after or come early on Tuesday so we will have enough time to take more videos. We will also have to spend time outside class analyzing our videos. Equipment: Casio exilim Flood lights tripod shield extension cords progress: We have made a lot of progress and we know what we need to do in order to finish in time. We have figured out exactly how we are going to analyze these videos and we are hoping that our calculations will work our in our favor. We have made a lot of progress and we expect to meet our goals. This week we will have to work harder than any other weeks in order to finish our analysis of our data.