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Water
- Get Wet! Episode 104
  
Waterslides
 Valerie and Margie love the slippery fun of waterslides and wanted to learn more about them.
Question
What makes a great waterslide?
Investigation
Valerie
and Margie rode two different waterslides, the "Flash Flood" and
the "Salsa Twist." They found out how long each ride was and recorded
the duration of each ride several times with a stopwatch. They also
used a homemade "mazometer" to measure how wild the ride
was. The mazometer was a simple maze drawn on paper and then laminated.
As the girls rode the slides, they tried to draw inside the lines
of the maze. The more messy their drawings were, the "wilder"
the ride!
Results
| ride |
mazometer |
length of slide |
average time |
speed |
| Flash Flood |
neat |
86 meters |
19 seconds |
4.5 meters per second |
| Salsa Twist |
messy |
80 meters |
20 seconds |
4.0 meters per second |
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Conclusion
They found
that the Flash Flood was faster than the Salsa Twist, but the
messy mazometer reading meant the Salsa Twister was wilder. That
explained why they enjoyed the Salsa Twist more than Flash Flood!
Surfing
 Carsten
is 12 years old and has been surfing six years. He wanted to learn
everything he could about surfing.
Question
Where are waves better for surfing: at a beach break or at a reef
break?
Investigation
Carsten
and his friends recorded three things:
How long his ride lasted
How many maneuvers he did
How fast he felt he was going
Conclusion
Carsten
found he got the longest rides with most maneuvers on a beach
break.
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