Hypothesis
There is a "sweet spot" in the weight of a person in respect to how high someone can jump and their respective flight time in the air while performing a jump. As a person deviates more than one standard deviation from the mean the jump heights and respective flight times decrease.
Testing Area
To create a consistent test environment, we will use the project space or another isolated area as our test site. This is will enable participants to be free from distractions, such as other people, loud noises, and weather. This will also ensure that participants will jump from the same surface and in a controlled environment.
Measurements
Personal Information: Participants will be asked to provide their name, age, gender, athletic history and major prior to any testing.
Height and Weight: One team member will be tasked with taking all height measurements to maintain consistency. Participants will be asked to remove their shoes and step on the scale provided by our team. BMI will be subsequently calculated using these measurements.
Calf and Thigh Circumference: The circumference will be measured around a point that is six inches below and above the center of the person’s kneecap by a flexible tape measure.
Jump Height: Participants will follow a modified procedure of the Sargent Jump Test. One team member will tape meter sticks to the wall. The participant will stand facing perpendicular to the wall and reach the arm adjacent to the wall as high over their head as possible while keeping both feet flat on the ground. One team member will take this initial height, h. Next, the participant will jump from a static position and reach their hand as high as possible. The peak height of their fingertips, h’, will be measured. To calculate the jump height, h will be subtracted from h’. (Jump Height will be referred to as the difference between h' and h for the remainder of the study.) For this portion of the test, the participant will complete total of five jumps with breaks in between each jump. The average of the five jumps will be calculated so that the central limit theorem may be utilized in our study. The jump height, or peak height, will allow us to determine how much time the subject was in the air for. This will allow us to calculate the initial velocity.
Jump Fatigue: As a second test, participants will be asked to jump, with the aforementioned technique, consecutively five times. A video camera will capture their peak heights for each jump, and a team member will record the difference in starting and peak height.
Points of Comparison:
Weight and BMI to Jump Height
Leg Size to Jump Height and Weight
Jump Fatigue to Weight & BMI
Force Produced on Takeoff to Jump Height and Leg Size
Jump Heights of students from different academic departments
Jump Heights of athletes to nonathletes
Jump Heights of different genders
Data Predictions:
Analysis
Null Hypothesis - There will be no correlation between jump height and the body measurements taken from each person.
Alternative Hypothesis - There will be a correlation between jump height and the body measurements taken from each person.
Equations to be used in data collection and statistical evaluations:
Points for Future Study
Source: AUDL
To get a good spread of data we will need to have people with differences in weights, leg sizes, majors, and athleticism do our tests.
We may need to measure acceleration of the jumpers if we cannot use a force plate for force measurements. Acceleration could be measured by taking video in front of a meter stick or with an accelerometer.
We also hope to utilize a force plate to measure the force generated at takeoff. This will allow us to see how powerful the subject is. Force can then be compared to leg measurements and body weight. The force plate measures force with strain gauges, which act like resistors. The resistance of the strain gauge changes as deformation changes with an applied load. The strain is calibrated to output a force measurement. This data can be used in place of our hand manual measurements or as supplementary information.
We may be able to measure the decay of jump heights as people jump consistently with no rest in between jumps.
We may have a problem of people having differing techniques of jumping that may hinder their success. We can try to avoid this by carefully explaining how we want them to jump to keep a consistent technique.
Factors we may not be able to control include, but are not limited to: differences in footwear, time since last meal or drink, amount of sleep, caffeine intake, or motivation to participate in the test. We can try to limit these and make people jump barefoot and give inspirational pep talks before the jump sequence.