Have you ever been running late for a flight and hopped on one of those moving walkways at the airport to try and boost your speed? Well, I did a study to find out just how fast those walkways really go, using the formula d = r t (distance = rate * time)

We did this experiment at Lambert Airport, where the walkways were 279 feet and 10 1/2 inches long.

We timed ourselves with a stopwatch from the starting point of the walkway to the end of it and came up with 11 approximate times.

Here are the results of our findings: (keep in mind that 1 min = 60 sec, 2 min = 120 sec, and so on.)

TIME IN MIN & SEC     TIME IN SECONDS           VARIANCES (TIME - AVERAGE TIME)
      2     17.780                               137.780                         -0.406
      2     18.700                               138.700                         +0.514
      2     18.400                               138.400                         +0.214
      2     18.290                               138.290                         +0.104
      2     18.150                               138.150                         -0.036
      2     18.710                               138.710                         +0.524
      2     17.435                               137.435                         -0.751
      2     18.105                               138.105                         -0.081
      2     18.340                               138.340                         +0.154
      2     17.990                               137.990                         -0.196
      2     18.150                               138.150                         -0.036
                              TOTAL         1,520.050                         +0.004

Now, to get the average (mean) time, take the total number of seconds and divide by the number of times the experiment was done:

The answer turns out to be 138.186 seconds!

Let's find out how far we traveled per second:

First, take the distance of the walkway = 279 ft 10.5 in, and convert the feet into inches by multipying 279 by 12 (# of inches in 1 foot).

We get 3348 inches. Now, add the 10.5 inches to this number to get 3,358.5 inches total.

If we divide this number by 138.186 seconds we get 24.304 inches traveled per second!!

If we then divide 3,358.5 inches by both 12 (12 inches per 1 foot) and 138.186 seconds, then that will give us 2.025 feet traveled per second!!

The rest is just conversions:

2.025 feet per second multiplied by 60 seconds in a minute= 121.5 feet per minute

121.5 feet per minute multiplied by 60 minutes in an hour= 7,290 feet per hour

7,290 feet per hour divided by 5,280 feet per mile gives us 1.38 miles per hour!

We have just figured out that the moving walkways move approximatly 1.38 mph!!!

This is our rate (r) in several units. All found based on our distance (d = 279 ft 10.5 in.) and our average time (t = 138.186 seconds).

For more information and ideas about this project you may link to a page written by one of the following math artists: Danielle, Darlene, Kellie, Jill, Nanyal, Kevin, Crystal, Rachel, Christina, Jennifer, Candice, Vincent, Esther and Melinda's First and Third Web Page. Most of us are in this picture but not in order of names.