Alice Ramsey's Cross Country Drive

A Marketable Model

Objective: Students will conduct a survey and graph their results

Curriculum Area: Math - Graphing

Study Skills: Conducting a Survey; Compiling Data

Materials: Paper and pencil for each group, clipboards, graph paper, markers, crayons, or colored pencils.

Ask the children if they have ever purchased a toy that disappointed them. Allow them to share one or two examples. As they share, ask them what they would have changed to make the toy better. Explain that car manufacturers design new cars in the same way. They look at the qualities people ask for in the cars they purchase and then incorporate these features into future

designs.

Explain to the children that they will be working in small groups to determine what the perfect model car would be. Divide them into small groups, preferably no more than four. Assign each group one of the following categories:

Manufacturer

Model (station wagon, sedan, sport utility, etc.)

Color

Number of doors

Type of seats (bucket or bench)

Transmission (automatic or stick shift)

Convertible, hard top, sun/moon roof

Take the groups to the school parking lot and have them survey the cars there. Before taking the students out, remind them not to touch any of the cars. If they cannot see what they need, tell them to either make a guess or skip that car.

After the students complete their survey, review the parts and qualities of an excellent graph and have them create an appropriate graph of the data. This may be done as a group activity or an individual one. When the graphs are finished, display them and discuss the results. By using the top-scoring item in each category they can answer the question,

What is the perfect car? For example, it might be a red Mercedes, two-door sedan with a stick shift and a moon roof.

Word Problems

Curriculum Area: Mathematics

Materials: Set of Word Problems, Graph Paper

1. Read background information given for each set of problems

2. Read the corresponding problems carefully

3. Brainstorm to produce a variety of possible problem solving strategies

4. Solve

Students explain answers in words, numbers, pictures, graphs, etc. As problems range somewhat in level of difficulty, teachers should select those problems which seem most appropriate for the class.

Use the following informational paragraphs to answer the corresponding questions:

The first electric car was designed by William Morrison in 1891. It took 10 hours to charge a battery that could run for 13 hours. Its average speed was 14 mph. Flat tires, broken axles, muddy roads, soggy pastures, and no real road maps to speak of were some of the obstacles drivers in the early 1900s, such as Alice Ramsey, could expect to encounter on a journey.

1. If a driver started on a trip at 7:00 a.m. and kept driving all day, at what time could s/he expect the battery to run down?

2. If a driver drove on the average of 2 hours a day, how many days would s/he expect the battery to last?

3. How many hours of life would the battery still have left in it?

4. How many miles could the driver expect to travel in 5 hours assuming the road conditions were good, and the car had no break-downs?

5. If a driver wanted to travel to a city 560 miles away, assuming there were no road or engine problems, how many hours would the trip take?

6. About how many times would the battery need to be charged for the above trip?

7. A driver wanted to travel to a city 280 miles away. He allowed a varying number of hours for driving time each day. Set up a schedule s/he might follow beginning with the model below:

Using graph paper, set up a similar chart for the next several days indicating the day and time of arrival at the destination, 280 miles away.

In 1905, Jonathan D. Maxwell came up with a wonderful car with a two cylinder water-cooled engine. A person could buy a 2 person tourabout for $750, and a 5 person touring car for $1,400. The following gives information as to how many Maxwells were produced for several years in the early 1900s:

Then, in 1909, a high-powered sales manager, Cadwallader Washburn Kelsey, who was always thinking up outrageous publicity stunts, thought up a wonderful new idea to sell Maxwells. Previously, he had attracted the public eye by publicizing tetterboard riding, chases with police, and driving up steps to important buildings including churches, etc.--all in a Maxwell, of course! In 1909, he came up with a really brilliant idea. He persuaded Alice Huyler Ramsey and three of her lady friends to trek cross-country from Hells Gate in New York, to the Golden Gate in San Francisco, in a Maxwell. At that time, the thought of women even thinking about such a journey was preposterous! No wonder they succeeded in attracting more press coverage than even Kelsey could have hoped for. The idea worked; in 1910, 20,500 Maxwells were sold. In 1917, the 100,000th Maxwell was sold.

1. How much more did the 5 person tourabout cost than the 2 person tourabout cost in 1905?

2. How many more cars were sold in 1908 than in 1907?

3. How many more cars were sold in 1910 than in 1908?

4. How many more cars were sold in the combined years 1908, 1909 and 1910?

5. How many more Maxwells were sold in 1917 than in all the years between 1907 and 1910?

6. What are some of the reasons which might account for the continual rise in the number of sales each year?

7. What could cause the prices to rise?

8. Make a bar graph or a line graph showing the rise in the number of sales from 1907 to 1917.

9. If half the Maxwells sold in 1907 were 2 person tourabouts, how much money was spent on all the tourabouts sold in that year?

10. Using the data in the paragraph above, write a word problem of your own with the answer.

The 1908 Maxwell Two-Cylinder 14 horsepower Runabout Model LD was equipped with a wheelbase of 84 inches. The tires were 30 inches in diameter. It was reported in the June 1909 , issue of a magazine called Touring Topics, that Miss Violet Neill ran a Maxwell Runabout for 19 months at a total cost, including tires, gasoline, oil, and supplies of every nature including gloves, lap robes, and both fire and accident insurance, of $575.46. The car cost $1000.00 originally, and was sold at the end of the 19 months for $500.00. She drove her little car 10,979 miles.

1. Using the measure of the wheelbase, axle to axle, about how many Maxwells could be parked end to end along a curb 95 feet long? Don't forget, the tires were 30 inches in diameter.

2. What did it actually cost Miss Violet to run her car for the 19 months? Remember, she sold it for $500.

3. About what did it cost her to run her car each month?

4. On the average, about how many miles did she drive per month?

5. About how much did it cost her to run her car per mile?

6. If Miss Violet drove about 15 miles per hour on the average, about how many hours did she drive before selling her car?

The following article was found in a 1909 magazine, Touring Topics, published by AAA of Southern California.

The Odometer's Record

The total distance recorded was 103.8 miles; time 9 hours, 20 minutes, with a stop of 1 ¼ hours at Shepherd's Inn.

1. About how far is it from Hollywood to Old Newbury Park?

2. About how far was it from Calabasas to El Rio?

3. About how many miles per hour was the driver driving, including his

stop for food at Shepherd's Inn?

4. How long did it take to get from Encino Ranch to El Rio?

5. How long did the driver stay in Ventura?