There is this go-kart place a short drive down the road from where I live that is pure adrenaline. The karts can go upwards of 40 mph, but the twisting course keeps the average speed in the 20's. What I enjoy about each experience, besides the large scoreboard in pit row, is the sweet sheet of data given to each driver after each race. While the video doesn't provide much to see, it should be enough to stimulate some conversation. The race sheets, however, are pure mathematical gold.
You may need to know that the length of the track, depending on the line you drive (or walk), varies. Here is a measurement I took. According to the owners, the track is 1/4 mile long (give or take 5 feet).
The data for this WCYDWT activity comes from our fourth, and final, race. There were four racers: BooBoo22, Chud, Josh, and Juiced.
My plan is to use the information with my seventh grade pre-algebra classes as well as my eighth grade algebra classes. I'm thinking that my seventh graders will want to know who went the fastest and may want to determine who actually won the race, whereas I think I'll leave it wide-open for my algebra students. I'll post a follow-up later this week. In the meantime, what are questions did you come up with?
NOTE: Obviously the video is an unnecessary component to this activity, but I had planned to have a speed gun to catch max speeds on the main straight-away to validate student calculations (maybe next year). I also toyed with recording the actual race so you could see crashes, wipe-outs, and other factors that affect the overall lap times. Any other video suggestions?
I love the idea! I've been tapping into some digital photos and such to get kids starting with the questioning process. I think the video of the race would be worth a try to just show the kids the video and see what questions they generated from the video. Then share the data printout to help them do the work! Might be a little early in the year to do this (as you haven't probably modeled the questioning, etc yet) but I could really see it working great that way- looking forward to hearing what happens!
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