Sledding 4 Science

This year Casi gets to participate in a science fair. Yippie!

Casi however, is openly against learning science (or at least enjoying it :). Luckily, she found a fun way to participate in the fair while still demonstrating her knowledge of the scientific method; speed vs friction in the form of sledding. 

Casi, Nate and I went up Big cottonwood Canyon one Sunday morning with agenda of collecting data for her project. We stopped at the first unofficial sledding area we found. 

It was raining in the valley and from the weather report up to 9,000 ft the day before. We were all worried the rainy conditions would affect Casi's sledding experiments.  We needed powdery conditions for Casis Hypothesis states:

"I predict that as the packed down, icy quality of the snow increases, the speed of the Fantastic Flyer III will also increase.

 I believe the following is true since the surface area of the Fantastic Flyer III is less than the H20! sled. Reducing the friction will increase the speed of the sled."

 As we climbed up the canyon the rain turned to snow; covering the slops with a  foot of Utahs finest powder. The greatest snow on earth.

Nate records Casi time as she crossed the finish line.

I am a data hog. I like reviewing data. I like graphing it. I like making graphs tell a particular story. Especially when a correlation is seen. For those data hogs that might be reading this, Casi's results are shown below.

Graph 1: Snow pack vs speed

This graph has quite a bit of information. It shows what an irratic sledder I am in comparision to Casi. Indicating that Casi is a way better sledder than me. It also shows how snow pack and speed are correlated. Showing that as the number of runs increase the snow began to pack and become icy. The packed snow and ice reduced the amount of friction acting on the sleds. As the friction reduced so did the time it took the sled to go down the slope. The sleds became faster. 
This graph also shows how initially the Flyer (sled on rails) was slower than the H20! (a plastic sled) but as the slopes became more snow packed and icy the Flyer became faster than the H20!. The Flyer performs better on icy slopes. The H2O!'s speed is less affected by the type of snow. 

Graph 2: Weight vs Speed

As the weight on the sled increased the time it took to go down the slope increased. The heavier a person is the more friction acts on the sled. The sled becomes slower. This is opposite to what Casi and I thought. Another fun experiment would be to test how a longer slope would affected this. 

Update: The display board (OMG! She is so cute in this picture)