👟 Shoe soles and slopes: the whole packet

👟 Shoe soles and slopes · 4th–8th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 40 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change which shoe sits on the slope, then how high the board is lifted when the shoe starts to slide will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 👟 Three different shoes: a sneaker, a boot and a sandal
• 📦 Flat cardboard: the biggest stiff, flat piece you have
• 🩹 Masking tape, to mark lines
• 📏 A tape measure, or a long ruler

Be safe: ✅ Nothing sharp, hot or small

1. Tape one end of the cardboard to a table, so that end can't slide.
2. Stick tape marks on the board for the shoe's heel, so it starts in the same spot every time.
3. Set the sneaker on its marks with its sole flat, pointing straight down the slope.
4. Lift the free end of the board very slowly, and watch the shoe.
5. The moment the shoe starts to slide, hold the board still.
6. A helper measures straight up from the table to the lifted end with the tape measure.
7. Write the height in your table under Try 1.
8. Put the shoe back on its marks and test it two more times.
9. Test the boot three times and the sandal three times the same way.
10. Find the mean for each shoe and draw a bar graph.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Shoe   I measured: how high the board is lifted when the shoe starts to slide (cm)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: shoe along the bottom, cm up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: put 20 pennies in each shoe, test again, and draw both tests on one graph. Does more weight change the slope?

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: which shoe grips a slope best?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing which shoe sits on the slope would change how high the board is lifted when the shoe starts to slide, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed which shoe sits on the slope (Sneaker, Boot, Sandal) and measured how high the board is lifted when the shoe starts to slide in cm.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same board and the shoe set in the same spot, pointing straight down the slope the same, so only which shoe sits on the slope was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: Sneaker and Sandal gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: put 20 pennies in each shoe, test again, and draw both tests on one graph. Does more weight change the slope?