Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I'm an 8th grader in Chesterfield, VA, and I need to come up with a topic by Friday! I really want to do a sports project, but all of my proposals have been shot down for reasons like no independent variable, human error, and other things, and I also don't want to do a project about how well different sports balls bounce. I was hoping I could get a recommendation for a project where there is experimentation involved, but I also get to play the sport.

Hello TheRealMohamedSene,

Have you checked out the “Project Ideas” section of this website? Several sports-oriented projects are listed. A few examples follow.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#summary

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p053.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p056.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p026.shtml

Perhaps one of the projects listed will fit with your interests or inspire other ideas.

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman

Yes, I have looked at these projects, but my teacher rejected any of the projects here. I also don't play any of those sports.

Hi TheRealMohamedSene,

I’m sorry to hear that none of the projects from this site will work for you. What sport interests you as the basis for a science project? And what questions might you have about that sport that might be “testable” in an experiment? Perhaps if we start with this information we can identify a project that will work for you.

A. Norman

Well, the sport that interests me is basketball, and I wanted to do a project about the miss to make ratio for lefties (me), righties (a friend), and ambidexterous (hopefully).

Hi TheRealMohamedSene,

Great project idea! It seems original to me and it certainly fits with your interests. That said I do see a couple of ways to improve your experiment that may also address some of your teacher’s concerns.

The question your project idea seems to be tackling is “what’s the effect of dominant handedness (leftie /rightie) on the make to miss ratio?”. But as you described it only one leftie (yourself) and only one rightie (your friend) would be tested. If that’s the case one could say that you tested the effect of two people and not the effect of handedness. To get around this you should recruit several left-handed and right-handed volunteers to participate in the test. Ideally you’d have equal numbers of lefties and righties (say five to ten of each). Each person would make a set number of shot attempts and you could average the number of shots made for the leftie and rightie groups. You’d have an even better experiment if you repeated the entire trial on a different day. Including several people and repeat trials is necessary to average out differences due to individuals that might have nothing to do with handedness.

I think the ambidextrous part of your idea is really another independent variable and it suggests a slightly different question. For example, you could ask “what’s the effect of using the non-dominant hand (lefties shoot right-handed; righties shoot left-handed) on the make to miss ratio?”. In this experiment you’d recruit five to ten volunteers. Each volunteer would make a set number of shot attempts with the dominant hand, then repeat with the non-dominant hand. I suggest repeating the entire trial on a different day for the same reasons mentioned above. Because you would not have to recruit lefties, it may be less challenging to complete this experiment than the one above.

I hope this helps and good luck with your project. Please post again if you have other questions.

A. Norman

What would the control be for the ambidextrous experiment?

Hi TheRealMohamedSene,

A “control” is a baseline or reference for your experiment. In this experiment the control would be your volunteers’ shot attempts with their dominant hand. These attempts represent the normal way the volunteers shoot a basketball and thus serve as a baseline for comparison to shot attempts made with the non-dominant hand.

Also you will have “controlled variables” which are things that you’ll keep constant throughout the experiment. For example, the basketball, the goal and the number of shot attempts per volunteer should all be controlled variables.

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have other questions.

A. Norman

Thank you so much for using your precious time to help me. This should be my last question, but I will post if I have more. Would it be better to do this project indoors as opposed to outdoors, or will there be no difference?

Hi TheRealMohamedSene,

The location of the basketball goal is another controlled variable. And of course the location should be the same for the whole experiment. The location shouldn’t matter if all potential variables are controlled. The problem is that we might not think of all the variables that might matter in indoor or outdoor settings. So I think I’d choose indoors because environmental conditions would be relatively constant as compared with outdoors.

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have other questions.

A. Norman