In Canadian football, after a touchdown the team has the opportunity to earn one
ID: 1589676 • Letter: I
Question
In Canadian football, after a touchdown the team has the opportunity to earn one more point by kicking the ball over the bar between the goal posts. The bar is 10.0 ft above the ground, and the ball is kicked from ground level, 36.0 ft horizontally from the bar in (Figure 1) . Football regulations are stated in English units, but convert to SI units for this problem. There is a minimum angle above the ground such that if the ball is launched below this angle, it can never clear the bar, no matter how fast it is kicked. What is this angle?
Explanation / Answer
Here,
We can make a right triangle with the ground the height of the bar, and the straight line created from the ball to the crossbar. He is 36ft away and the bar is 10ft high, so the tangent of the angle he needs to kick it is 10/36.
arctan(10/36) = 15.52 degrees