Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am a 12th grade student in a Scientific research class. I enjoy to telemark ski very much, and I am forming my science project around it.
Recently there have been new types of telemark bindings designed for touring and backcountry. When activated, these binding claim to reduce the amount of energy used to climb uphill. It also claims to have zero-resistance. I am thinking about testing the amount of resistance/friction in this new binding compared to the ammount of resistance/friction in the old binding. Does anyone have any ideas on how to test this? My science teacher and I were thinking about testing it with springs.
Here are links for the new technology and the standrad technology:
New technology: http://www.genuineguidegear.com/telemar ... scent.html

Old technology: http://www.genuineguidegear.com/telemar ... targa.html

One way to measure the effect of friction is to measure the amount of heat lost to the environment. Another is measuring the amount of energy coming out compared to the amount going in; maybe measured by how much air or water could be pumped.

Vlad Verishnakov wrote:I am a 12th grade student in a Scientific research class. I enjoy to telemark ski very much, and I am forming my science project around it.
Recently there have been new types of telemark bindings designed for touring and backcountry. When activated, these binding claim to reduce the amount of energy used to climb uphill. It also claims to have zero-resistance. I am thinking about testing the amount of resistance/friction in this new binding compared to the ammount of resistance/friction in the old binding. Does anyone have any ideas on how to test this? My science teacher and I were thinking about testing it with springs.
Here are links for the new technology and the standrad technology:
New technology: http://www.genuineguidegear.com/telemar ... scent.html

Old technology: http://www.genuineguidegear.com/telemar ... targa.html

I don't know very much about skiing, but I don't see the claims you say they make on the pages you provided- maybe you are over generalizing their claims? A company, hopefully, only makes very specific and testable claims; they hope you might read more in to them- you need to read everything like a scientist. I think you need to very carefully evaluate each claim made, and then research each one to see if it is testable. Luckily, a lot of people are interested in skiing, and figuring out what equipment is best, so many websites have lots of tests designed for different things. You can take your knowledge of skiing to optimize an experiment to better measure a quantity that is important.

For example, picking the sentence "In tour mode, the Ascent toe plate pivots unrestricted on a stainless steel axle, eliminating the burden of boot flex resistance." (maybe this is what you read as "zero resistance"?) Then, you can google for such things as "testing boot flex in bindings" and you get an wealth of information such as:
http://www.telemarktips.com/BindBench.html
http://www.wildsnow.com/?p=380

These sites show sample test rigs as do other websites. Then, you can decide which of these testing methods is
a) feasible for you to do
b) most accurately tests something that is important for ski boot/ binding performance
c) can you modify this test to be "better" or more useful?

If you pick other sentences, you can do the same thing. What claim do you find most interesting?

Hope this helps!
Louise