Cheer Basket Basics A cheer basket is an organized stunt consisting of four or five people depending on your needs. Stunt groups have two bases, a back, a flyer, and a front if needed. There are certain precautions a group must take in order to have a successful basket with no injuries. Both bases have to squat down to an almost ninety degree angle when the flyer is stepping in. Squatting over ninety degrees can cause serious back and knee injuries. A back is in charge of loading in the flyer and throwing her up in the back for a higher basket while also making sure she does not fall backwards. The back lowers down to a kneel with one leg down and one leg up. The leg the back keeps up, while kneeling, is the same leg as the flyer has in the basket when she begins. The back holds the flyer’s glutius-maximus with the other hand and pushes up. When pushing up, the flyer moves her other foot into the basket. A front helps bases create more momentum by standing in the front of the stunt group, in front of the flyer. The front places both hands under the square created by the bases and helps lift. Not every stunt group is required to have a front. The flyer rides the momentum from all stunt group members to perform a specific basket.
Calculations Our group made calculations using a video of San Marin Junior Varsity’s cheer team performing a basket. The scale was 2.2 cm was equivalent to 5.5 feet. The height of our basket was 2 meters high, using the video as evidence. Then using the height, we calculated a time for our basket which was 0.63 seconds. This time was calculated from the top of the basket with the most PE to when the flyer is caught at the bottom. Our velocity was then able to be found because we had a time. The vertical velocity was 6.3 m/s, equal to roughly 15 mph. A flyer is always thrown up vertically with no horizontal distance or velocity. The goal is to have the flyer land in the spot she is thrown without having the bases move. The flyer in our YouTube video weighs 115 lbs or 52.1 kg. We calculated the force by using mv=Ft. In this case, the time used was the time of impact. After calculating, we got a force of 995 N or 220 lbs. That force was almost double the weight of our flyer.
Work Log Over four weeks, my group and I worked very diligently. Kiki, Gigi, and I split up all of the work equally and helped eachother when needed. This project consisted of a storyboard, script, film, and editing process. Our group decided to start working on our storyboard first. This step took about 2-3 days until we had a rough idea of how we wanted our film to look. We then started to create a script that had everyone in our group talk. The finished story board and script gave us exactly what we needed to film. In the beginning of week 2, we started filming. My group filmed for about 3 class days and 1 day out of school, at cheer practice. Editing our film took the most amount of time. It took about a week to fully edit our film in a way that pleased everyone in our group. On the day we presented our films to the class, we recieved some constructive criticism about our film. The day after presenting, we condensed our calculations on our film because we explained almost every detail. We trimmed down our video because of the calculations by over a minute. After revising our video, I reuploaded the finished version to youtube.
Reflection This has been my favorite group project because of how well my group and I interacted with one another. I was very good at evening the work between group members evenly. As a team, we finished the project very early while also having fun. We set goals everday to help stay on track. We could have improved the way we editted because we couldn’t give everyone the option to help editting. The editting was done on one phone that wasn’t able to share to other people. Our video still came out great and everyone did at least one thing in the video. During the physics of sports project, I learned that I am a very good leader. This project was very enjoyable because of my group and the sport we chose to do.