Skiing

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Title
What are the effects of Mass on ski speed down a hill.

Problem Scenario
If skis are given extra weight will they go faster downhill.

Broad Question
Does mass effect gravitational pull.

Specific Question
Does mass effect ski speed on a hill.

Hypothesis
If I send skies down the hill with different weights, they should all come down at the same time. I know this because I researched that if two items are dropped from the same height then they will land at the same time meaning that gravity pulls all weight the same.

Independent Variable :
The weight on the ski.

Dependent Variable :
The ski speed.

Variables That Need To Be Controlled :
The wax on the ski and the snow.

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation
None.

General Plan
I will do this at my house in my yard. It will take about an hour and wont be disrupted. I will be measuring the ski speed with different weights. There are no concerns I have with this experiment.

Potential Problems And Solutions
the wax on them, the stacks condition, the start.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns
none

Experimental Design
I will have the exact same amout of wax on. I will have a hand made starter so the times are accurate. I will make the same size boxes so volume of the box weight is not a variable.

Resources and Budget Table

 * Item || Number needed || Where I will get this || Cost ||
 * 0 || none || none ||  ||

Detailed Procedure
Scrape all the wax off my skis so the ski speed is consistent. Then build a box on my ski so the volume is consistent. Then rake out a track on a hill. Then get someone to time the ski speed from the start to the finish line. Record the data and make a graph.

Photo List
Picture of the skis. Picture of the track.

Time Line
2-2 This weekend build skis with weights. 2-6 Over the week do experiment and collect data.

Weight Time
10 pounds 8.56 20 pounds 7.95 30 pounds 6.76 60 pounds 4.24

All Raw Data

 * || 0 pounds || 5 pounds || 10 pounds || 30 pounds ||
 * Trial 1 || 7.45 || 8.1 || 8.31 || 8.92 ||
 * Trial 2 || 7.41 || 8.08 || 8.44 || 8.98 ||
 * Trial 3 || 7.7 || 8.16 || 8.29 || 8.85 ||
 * Trial 4 || 7.6 || 8.05 || 8.46 || 9.82 ||

Results
The results to my experiment is that weight does have an effect on ski speed. When doing my test there is a clear difference between each weight ski.

Conclusion
My hypothesis was that the weight of the skis will not make a different in speed and time. I was wrong and the weights on the skis did make a difference as you can see on the graph. When more weight was added the times went down.

Discussion
When starting my experiment I searched on the internet and found that weight does not have an effect on gravitational pull. Although gravity pulls all weight the same it did have an effect on ski on snow. When testing my experiment there was a clear differences between the weights. Between no added weight and 30 pounds there is a clear difference of times. The trend of my data is that the more added weight the faster the ski went and the lower the time. The correlation is very strong between weight and the times as you can see on the final data. My whole experiment was to answer if heavier skiers had an advantage in skiing and with the data I collected the answer is yes. There was one thing is my experiment that may have been a problem and something might do differently if I could do it again. It was that I made a box on my ski to put the weights in so the area of the weights and the drag was not a factor. If real life situation a heavier person would have a bigger surface area and area creating more drag. This might change with went faster.

Benefit to Community and/or Science
This shows that kids can use there weight as an excuse when we loose.

Background Research
Dont grade this! Grade me discussion please.

Abstract
I first came up with my experiment because on the ski hill I wondered if the bigger heavier kids had an advantage. I wanted to test if more weight on skis made them go faster. When I first started this expirement i did some research and looked into newtons law as well as other information