IT’S ALL IN A DAY OF SNOWBOARDING

It’s All in a Day

Of

Snowboarding….

There’s What in What? One may think that snowboarding is a sport made up of punk kids

who wear bandanas over their faces like they are from the Wild West and wear their pants so low you can see what kind of underwear they chose that morning. Although some of this is true, there are also many instances that these kids use their mathematical knowledge on the way to the mountain, while they are there, and on their way home. It is because mathematical concepts are so important to this sport and are so in grained that most people don’t even recognize when they are using all of the math that they learned in school. All of those lessons actually did pay off… I am one of these punk kids, and I’d like you to join me in learning how much math these punk kids really know.

First Things First…What’s the Weather like?

• 28* for the high• 20*for the low• 60% chance of

precipitation• South wind 20-

30mph• Visibility- 5.00mi• It looks like it will

be a little cold with the wind, so I will bring my size 7 heated boots, and my Gortex layered jacket and mittens

How Much Gas Do We Have?

• The Mountain is 41.81 miles away.

• To go there and back we need enough gas to bring us 83.62 miles.

• Our car gets 26 miles per gallon, this means we need at least 3.22 gallons of gas to make it there.

• We are bringing 3 people, 3 snowboards, and 3 bags of stuff, my car might not get 26 miles per gallon because of our extra weight, so lets get 3.5 gallons.

• Gas is $2.25 per gallon• In order for us to get 3.5 gallons

of gas it will cost us $7.88• There are three people in the car,

so $7.88 divided by 3 people is $2.63 each.

Are We There Yet?• So we figured out

before that the mountain is 41.81 miles away.

• Half of the trip we will be going below the speed limit because of the road conditions and will be averaging 60mph, the other half we will be averaging 30mph.

• The first part of the trip will take us about 21 minutes

• The second part of the trip will take us about 42 minutes.

• Our total trip should take us about 1 hour and 3 minutes.

It’s How Much?

$84 Per Day during Prime Season$89 Per Day during Peak Season$57 Per Day during Late/Early Season

$65 Half-day pass during Prime Season$68 Half-day pass during Peak Seasonn/a Late/Early Season

$559 Season pass for student

If a season pass is $559, and a day Prime Season pass is $84 then in order to break even I must go more than 6.65 times. This will mean that my cost of going 7 times will be less than $84 per visit.

Do I have Everything?Helmet Weight-1 lb Board Weight-13.5lbs

Goggle Weight-.5 lb

Binding Weight- 6 lbs

Boot Weight- 7 lbs

Jacket/Pants Weight- 6 lbs

Total Weight- 34 lbs extra carrying weight per person

Now That We Are Here What are the Conditions?

• How much snow is at the stake? 88” 88 inches divided by 12 inches (because there are 12 inches in a foot) equals 7.33’. This is 7.3 feet of snow at the top of the mountain!

• How much snow has fallen in the last 24hrs?10”

• The ratio of fallen snow to water is 10 to 1. If 10” of snow fell then it’s the equivalent of 1” of rain falling.

• What is the snow consistency?Powder, because of the 28* temperature and the 10” of new snow. As the temperature rises, the density of the snow increases. This makes the snow very heavy and difficult to carve in but great to fall in.

Getting up the Mountain…• How fast we can get up the mountain is called lift capacity.• The Lift can move 1200 people per hour and travels up the mountain at a

speed of 5 meters per second. • If the cable up the mountain is 6400’ how long will it take to get to the top?• First we need to convert feet to meters and 1 meter = 3.28 ft.• 6400’ is equal to 1951 meters. At the speed of 5 meters per second this will

get us to the top of the mountain in about 6.5 minutes.

Warm Up Run…

When I start my first run it is important to get warmed up from the chilling lift ride. In snowboarding, it is also very important to keep your board at varying angles to achieve different results. If you are goofy stance, and want to carve hard to the right, you need to angle the tip of your board at about a 135* angle so that you will be still continuing down the hill, but not at full speed. As your body temperature rises, your muscles begin to loosen up and your agility increases .

Then the Pipe..• I usually hit the pipe after my

warm-up which gets my adrenaline flowing.

• The Half-Pipe takes a lot of time, money, and intelligence to construct.

• If the angle of the wall is not correct people will land incorrectly

• If the height of the wall is too short you wont be able to maintain enough speed to finish tricks until the end

• And if the entry ramp doesn’t create enough speed, riders ability to throw tricks is limited.

To End The Day Why Not Some Jumps?

• Things that I consider every time I hit a jump…

• What is the height of the jump?

• What is the angle of the slope?

• How long is the table top?

• What is the landing like?

• How fast should I be going to clear the table top and land safely?

• What is the snow like?

On the Road Again…

It is 4:00pm and we have been here since 11:00am. We have been riding for 5 hours. I have exerted lots of energy today and now need to nap to replace all that was lost. Today, I have learned that there really are so many mathematical concepts that I didn’t realize existed pertaining to snowboarding like mph, time, distance, length, speed, density, visibility, conversions, and angles. Take care, I’m glad that you could follow me today, hope to see you again soon!