A scientific look at the efficiency of curling brooms by Jenni Gill

Interpretation of data:
        The graph labeled “mean distances “shows just that, the average distance of the rocks swept with each kind of broom. The way I got the data for the green column was I took all of the distances for one type of broom and found the mean. The data in the red column is the mean, however the four highest and four lowest distances were removed from the calculation for the control rocks. Likewise the two highest and two lowest distances were removed from the calculation of the
mean for the swept rocks. What this graph shows us is that, including the anomalous distances, my broom did the best, followed by the brownie and then synthetic while the hog hair and control rocks were essentially the same. When you take out the anomalies what you find is that my broom still did the best but instead of the
brownie, following it is the synthetic and then the brownie. The hog hair and control rocks are almost exactly the same in this part of the graph. 

        The graph labeled “raw data of set A” is the graph that shows the unaltered data from the first pair that I asked to sweep for me. The average of the control (or the orange line) is the average of two control rocks, one thrown before and one thrown after a swept rock. The graph of the raw data of set B is the same thing only this time I got the information when the second pair of sweepers helped me. 

        The graph of the “% differences” shows how much farther the swept rock traveled than the average of the control rock on either side of it (control mean). The average of the control rocks gives a good estimation of what the rock might have done had it not been swept. To getthe percent difference, find the difference between the distance of the swept rock and the control mean (as described above). Take that difference and multiply it by 100 and divide that number by the control mean. This percentage represents the difference between the swept rock and the distance it might have travelled had it not been swept. This graphs shows those percentages according to who swept the rocks and what broom they used. 

        The “% delta low to high” graph uses the same data as the % differences graph. This graph divides the data by broom type and the distances are not in the order that they were thrown, they are ordered short to long. What this graph is telling us is that overall the hog hair broom didn’t do as well as the others. That is the only truly clear conclusion we can draw. While the brownie seems to be the most consistent both the synthetic and my broom had some higher results. While interpreting the data it helps to take out the extremes on both ends of the spectrum. Doing this lets you see the overall trends. The overall trends in this graph indicate that the brownie, synthetic, and my design all caused the rock to go about the same distance.