Kinematics aims to provide a description of the spatial position of bodies or systems of material particles, the rate at which the particles are moving (velocity), and the rate at which their velocity is changing (acceleration).

Why is kinematics important in everyday life?

In many instances it is only important to know how an object moves, without consideration of the forces causing the motion. For example, in machine components it is common to use kinematics analysis to determine the (unknown) speed of an object, that is connected to another object moving at a known speed.

Why are kinematics sometimes important for measuring performance?

In addition to supplying useful physical data about individual events, data pertaining to kinematics can be used to establish relationships between different parameters in the same object.