Rafael wrote: - > one good approach that will give quantitative > results, to be interpreted later by theory > would be the STATISTICAL APPROACH. G'day, Makes some sense to me. Instrumenting a paddle is expensive in time and money, especially if you include the very best subminiature gyroscopes so that velocity can be approximately determined. Trying to derive velocity from a strain gauge measurement in a paddle requires difficult assumptions and I'm told gives very poor signal to noise. A statistical approach might be cheaper if the null hypothesis was kept simple and the sample number very high. For example would anyone be interested in joining an experiment by email to test the relationship between blade 'aspect ratio' and speed of paddling? This would need roughly 100 volunteers to measure the long and short axes of their blades then paddle a fixed distance and measure their speed. The paddling would need to be under a simple set of conditions TBD. This could be at the paddlers convenience, in their own location and in their own time. All measurements to be provided back channel and privacy to be respected. ie results published make no reference to particular paddlers and the source of data would be erased. The number of paddlers required could be reduced if the paddling conditions were made stringent, but this might be impractical. It wouldn't produce conclusive proof and doesn't have the virtue of a double blind study. However, it may give an indication of a trend and if there were significant results they would be relevant across a diverse range of paddlers and boats. If enough people are interested I'll coordinate the effort, get the results professionally analysed and publish them on this list. Any comments? Any interest? All the best, PeterO *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Jun 12 2003 - 04:31:34 PDT
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