Super Slides!!

Gigantic carnival slides!! They are awesome!!  Really, anything where you can teach transfer of energy is awesome.

I used to spend hours racing my sisters (we were all different sizes at the time). Technically, objects starting at the same height should fall at the same rate (remember the transfer of energy equation (in an ideal world): mass x gravity x height = 1/2 x mass x velocity^2, masses cancel each other out).  However, I always ended up winning...

We tried out each color and experimented on our own during a trip to a local amusement center.

So why does it seem that some lanes of the Super Slide go faster than others?  Some factors:
**Higher overall lane usage = difference in friction
**Difference in waxing jobs of lanes (if venue waxes the slide)
**Sliding position, are you more aerodynamic than your competitor(s)
**Did you cheat and push off of the railings at the top?
**Different mats could cause different coefficients of friction
**Are your shoes or something else rubbing along the slide and slowing you down?

On our slide, the lane of choice was teal.  J and I ended up sliding off the end of the landing strip many times on teal, not so much on the others.  I think it was a difference in waxing or wear since we used the same mat each time.

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