Got Daim Bramage?

Introduction

The running joke on a soccer field after you head a particularly hard ball is, "Man, I wonder how many brain cells that killed?" Well, our experiment won't tell you how many brain cells you just killed, but it will tell you how much force hit your head. We taped an X250-1 to a size five soccer ball so we could figure that out.

Objective

The experiment determines the resulting impact forces when a size five soccer ball is dropped ten feet onto one's head.

Test Setup

We taped an X250-1 to a size five soccer ball, we then stood on the roof and had a soccer player stand ten feet below the ball. We dropped the ball and the soccer player proceeded to head it back to us. We repeated this process ten times.

Config.txt

PRODUCT_ID = X250-1
deadband = 100
DeadBandTimeout = 3
samplesperfile = 76800
statusindicators = Normal
SampleRate = 512

Soccer Ball with Accelerometer

Results

Force of a Soccer Ball when it hits your head

Event	Peak G-Force	Peak Force	Time	Average Force
	g	lbf	msec	lbf
1	136	4349	10	2822
2	140	4472	22	2119
3	156	4968	18	2773
4	167	5328	18	2822
5	147	4707	20	1876
6	128	4091	22	1961
7	145	4645	28	1643
8	141	4492	28	1975
9	156	4989	20	2526
10	190	6057	22	2314
Average	151	4810	21	2283

Discussion

After we analyzed all of the data, we came to the conclusion that a soccer ball dropped from ten feet in the air hits your head with an average force of 2283 Lbs during a brief period of 21 milliseconds. However, this is just dropping the ball from a roof. We realize that during a game when someone kicks the ball and it hits your head, the force (and pain) will be much greater.