The Effect Of Soccer Ball Velocities On A Model Head As Videoed By A Cell Phone Camera /

The purpose of this study was to determine if a cell phone camera could be used to correlate soccer ball impact velocity to “model head” impact force. The results could be correlated to head impact criteria developed by other researchers to predict concussion potential. It was hypothesized that the soccer ball velocity at impact would positively correlate with impact force to the model head. The investigation involved two stages: (1) vertical ball drop from three heights to correlate the cell phone video analysis to the calculated velocity using an equation of motion; and (2) horizontal impact trials to correlate ball velocity to impact force to the “model head,” which was partially filled with different amounts of sand to provide a range of “effective head masses”. The linear travel distance after impact with the ball was measured by analyzing the videos. The impact force was calculated by a form of Newton’s Law based on effective mass, the measured linear travel distance, and measured time. Linear regression t-tests showed a strong relationship in Stage 1 between the calculated and measured velocity (r2 = 0.9894) and a weak correlation in Stage 2 between measured horizontal velocity at impact and the calculated impact force. Because R(39) = .989, p = \u3c.001, the null hypothesis was rejected indicating a strong correlation between the soccer ball velocity and impact force for stage 1, and because R(55)= .2167, p=\u3c.001, the null hypothesis was rejected indicating a weak correlation between the soccer ball velocity and impact force