[These pages are meant to be a prototype for online lessons at the Olympic Cybervillage for the 1998 winter Olympics. They are not ready for prime time. Ask permission before using. Send comments to Susan Addington: susan@math.csusb.edu]

Design a ski race course

Imagine that the Olympic Committee has hired you to design the race course for the downhill ski event. They have supplied you with a topographic map (below) and a list of rules they require for the race course. You must produce a race course design by drawing a curve on the map. You must also include a cross section of your route that shows how steeply the course goes down, and a written description of the course.

If you don't see a map with a "Clear" button and other buttons at the top, you don't have a java-enabled browser. Download and print the topo map from the link below.

Here is a topo map suitable for printing, in color or black and whit="pictures/skibw1.gif">black and white.

[example of route, cross section]

Explanation of cross section
Description of this course

Rules for designing the course

General features
- You must use the shape of the hill; unlike a half-pipe snowboard course, you can't build up snow to change the shape of the course.
- There must be room at top and bottom for start and finish areas, timing devices
- The finish area must be fairly flat.
- Designnate 2-3 spots in between for split timers and cameras
- If possible, designate some places along the route for spectators. They must be far away enough from the route for safety.
Slope of the route:
- The route must never go uphill.
- The route must be quite steep.
- The route should not include any cliffs.
- The route must include one or two jumps.
- To be precise, the slope of the route must be between [x] and [y]
Length of the route: the route must be between [a] and [b] meters long.
Curvature of the route: the turns must not be too tight.

[ask a real race course designer for the actual constraints]

Possible additional features

These are things that could take advantage of uniquely webby resources.

Photos, video, or animated gifs of the actual site

Written interview with real course designer

Or, better (or in addition), a chat session with real course designer

Video clips from the last winter olympics

Video clips from this winter olympics, as they become available

Interviews and/or chat with skiers about the experience of skiing down the course (I had dinner with Tommy Moe at Mammoth this spring (well, we were in the same restaurant, anyway). Maybe we could get him online!)

Warm-up activities

Subsidiary questions/topics

Understanding topographic maps. Explanations and activities.
Questions about the Olympic Committee's rules.
- Slope in math and in real life
- How can you describe or measure the tightness of a curve? (Relates to calculus, but it's never too early to think about these things.) Also connections to physics--centrifugal force.

Possible related pages: skiers on the course

Prediction during a race: can you tell early in a run how a skier will finish? Can you predict final time from split time?

Instantaneous velocity?

Average velocity?

At what point is the skier going fastest?

Spinoffs

Here is another applet (ImageScribble) that might be good for a lot of things. It lets you draw on an image on the web page. on an image on the web page.