Buying a Snowmachine

 My district decided to send packets home for students to work on because only about 50 percent had enough internet to attend online meetings.  We were also told not to teach new material because too many parents would not be able to help their students.

I decided to create some material that would be more relevant to them than most of the things I could find online.

I love in Alaska which means snow machines are much more relevant to my students because most every family has at least one but usually more.  There are a couple of students who would rather spend all their time watching videos starting snow machines so I created an activity for them to do where they calculated the power to weight ratio, bore to stroke ratio and calculate torque for three popular brands out here.  I thought I'd share this with you.

Snow Machine Comparison.

 

Formulas you will need.

Power to Weight ratio where you divide the Horse power number by the dry weight.  The Power  to weight ratio tells you how much power it has for each horsepower.

Bore - stroke ratio. Is where the size of the bore is divided by the size of the stroke.  You want a ratio that is as close to one as you can get so you have the best torque and power.

Torque is (Horse power x 5252)/RPM.  Torque is a way of talking about the work a machine does.  

Fill out the following table using the formulas at the side.

Snow machine	Ski-doo	Polaris	Arctic Cat
Power/Weight
Bore/Stroke
Torque = (HP x 5252)/RPM

1. Once you calculate this information, write a paragraph on which snow machine is the best and why based on the information in the table.

2.  Which one of these would you buy.  Explain your reasoning behind your choice.

I designed this activity so students would learn about some important math focused on snow machines and to use the answers to help them decide on a machine.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.

Have a great day.