What are some good ideas for a Gymnastics related Science Fair Project?

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My 4th grade dd has a science project due and I thought it might be interesting for her to do something related to gymnastics. I was thinking of doing something related to balance and the senses or how gymnastics is related to physics (on a 4th grade level). Does anyone else have any other good ideas?

Thanks guys for any and all input!!!!
 
Thanks Bog!!! You are such a great help (as always!!!). I think a balance project using the beam would be good project to play around with. It would be cool to do something with physics and the vault but it may be too complicated to carry out. That video of that little girl Maddi scoring a 9.9 on her level 4 vault got me inspired!!!
 
Those are great ideas. Last year for my physics project I did an analysis of some conditioning exercises and simple gymnastics moves to determine the amound of force you have to exert to do it. For example, doing push-ups with each hand and foot on a scale. About 2/3 of your weight is in your arms :)
 
I was also thinking of videotaping back hip circles on bars, one fully extended the correct way and one where you tuck your legs in and time the difference of completion of the skill. This would show how when there is more mass (or it is spread out) it spins slower than a tight ball. Not sure if this would be too complicated to demonstrate on white poster board...
 
I did a science project using the vault when I was younger (not as young as fourth grade), but still. From what I remember (and this is going back a few years), we got a few different gymnasts and had them run as fast as they could down the runway, jump on the springboard and jump as far as they could with a straight body without a vault table in the way and just a mat to land on (to see if the run up speed had any effect on how far they could jump). So that we didn't have to calculate speed, we kept the distance to the springboard the same and just measured the time (which matches indirectly with speed). It's a good idea to make sure the kids can all jump properly and with a tight body. hope that helps.:)
 
My teammate did a physics project as a senior about how she tore her ACL. I don't really know much about physics so I'm not sure exactly what she did in the experiment. But she like videotaped lots of people doing fulls which is what she tore it on.
 
You guys know me & the mental aspect of the sport! DD did a science fair project on "Which is more effective actual practice or actual practice+ mental practice?". It worked out great. Can you guess which was more effective????:D
 
You guys know me & the mental aspect of the sport! DD did a science fair project on "Which is more effective actual practice or actual practice+ mental practice?". It worked out great. Can you guess which was more effective????:D

Hmmm... I'm guessing the latter. I did a presentation on mental practice over a year ago. It was pretty interesting. However, I've found that trying to teach my gymnasts to use it was a little harder ;).
 
Mdgymmom I was wondering what your ended up doing?
Me too! What irony! I came onto CB to stop from pulling out my hair! DS and I are trying to chart his results/data for his S.F. project on football. Does anyone have pointers on using Microsoft Works graph chart maker. I am severly computer graph, etc dyslexic! Oh My!!
 
Wow--this post came back from the depths!!! I think the year that I posted this thread (4th grade) she did an experiment in soaking an egg in vinegar and how it affected the dissolving of the shell. The next year in 5th grade, she did an experiment on varying amounts of sugar dissolved in a solution of water and how that affected crystal growth.
 
Last year, one of my gym friends did an experiment to see which flyaway is slowest/fastest. She had three different gymnasts and they all did one pike, one tuck, and one layout. She timed them as soon as their hands came off the bar until their feet hit the ground. She also video taped it (I guess to make the presentation more interesting)
 
This year for Science Fair, I'm doing an experiment about twins and twisting.
Like seeing if twins perferable twisting direction is the same, if gender is a factor in it, etc. I think it'll be very cool, and quite easy as they only have to do a jump full turn!
 
you could include something about how being tight makes you bounce higher, vs being loose you don't go as high, etc.
 

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