math and rollerblading

[upindismug4d]

i am doing a school project for my geometry class, and i trying to talk about how rollerblading deals with math. anyone got any ideas?
thanks

[Ed Mack]

Do you mean about inertia, gravity and friction, or the actual (G's?) forces acting upon the skateboarder when he does a little trick?

[upindismug4d]

Im talking about friction, and velocity in rollerblading.

[ironmallet]

one interesteing thing about rollerblading is the method of acceleration. The wheels are almost fritionless in the direction of travel, and have no motor (of course). To accelerate you have to take advantage of the fact that the wheels are also laterally stiff. So by having the balance leg pointed in the direction of movement, and the 'pushing' skate past a certain angle (maybe 30 deg offline?) you can accelerate.

Also cool is the idea of rockering the wheels, where the middle two are lower than the end two wheels. This causes the skates to offer less resistance to tight turns.

Also that sinusoidal motion people make with their feet to skate backwards is interesting. It really makes you think about the relationship between the direction of travel and the necessity of pushing when the blade is not aligned with the direction of travel.