MATLAB is used to implement the simulation of a flying projectile and to plot the results.

Programming skills: arrays, for loops, while loops, plotting results

Analysis skills: Looking at the results and determining what is "reasonable" given the application of a basketball shooting machine

Communication skills: writing a technical report that includes introduction, methods, results, and discussion

This is first presented to students in class, and then they work on it independently.
This is given as a homework assignment, and students have 2 weeks to complete it. Week one focuses on getting measured data to validate the model. Week two focuses on developing the simulation, validating the model, and determining the parameters for the basketball shooting machine.

Because this involves tracking the movement of a basketball, the simulation requires the implementation of some principles of physics, but we provide students with the equations for determining velocity and acceleration of a projectile. When students work on this project, their prior programming experience ranges from virtually none to extensive.

Students submit their completed MATLAB live script (mlx file) and a report.

A basketball shooting machine is a product that collects the ball under the hoop and passes it back to the player. This enables the player to practice shooting from the same location without having to retrieve their own ball.

The goal for this assignment is to determine a "reasonable" angle and velocity needed to pass the ball back to the shooter at the free throw line. It should not be a line drive because that would be hard to catch, and it should not be a high looping pass either. The student should use their own height to determine the target height for the pass, so that they are catching the ball at the level of their chest.

In order to validate the model, the open source Tracker program is used to obtain measurements of a ball rolling off of a table. The simulation results are then compared to these measurements. Once the model is validated, then students can use the model to simulate the basketball shooting machine.