Well, for my first ever forensics comp, Im doing poetry and and informative speech. As im sure even the dumbest of you have by now realized, my IS is going to be on unicycling. Ive just started, and I think my 3 main topics are going to be the history of the uni, capabilities of the uni, and uni safety. I was just wondering if anyone has any good info i should add, or any good sites to use for research. Anyone done something like this?
Twisthem
Here is a bunk report I worte a while ago for english:
English Thesis Assignment
This thesis will prove through evidence of costs, advantages and disadvantages that riding a mountain unicycle is not only more cost effective than a bike, but more beneficial to the rider. Also that it is not just a “circus toy”, as thought by the general populous, and could be a common sport in the future.
In the case of cost the average mountain bike can cost from $500-$5,000 depending on quality and repairs can cost $20-$300 each, mounting to larger sums of periods of time. These bikes often have warrantees on parts for a range of 2-5 years and will cover any and all damage no matter what the reason. However the leading unicycles can cost from $400-$1200 with most parts under a lifetime warrantee, that gaurantees immediate replacement of broken parts.
In which case the most common parts broken on a unicycle are the hub and cranks (the axle) due to hundreds of pounds of force and torque is applied when a rider will drop or ride off of a ledge from heights of inches to heights upwards of 14feet. These drops can easily bend or snap the hub or crank arms, rendering the part useless and irreparable (a hub/crank set consists of a solid axle and two crank arms that are fastened onto the axle). Another common “injury” to the unicycle can be a bent rim which usually costs $10-$70 to replace; a snapped saddle which can be fixed for $10-$30, by taking the saddle apart and replacing the base, either with plastic or carbon fiber. The same “injuries” do happen with bikes, however the ranges of these parts being broken are much wider and often more than twice as costly. A broken brake cable can cost $20-$35; a gear cable break can cost $40-$60 to fix. Both of these prices are just repair costs, the replacement of these parts would cost almost twice as much.
There are things that are very similar in unicycle and bike design. What both bicycles and unicycles have in common are tube flats and bent rims/popped spokes. Both are susceptible to a tire flat due to thorns, pinch-flats, or other foreign objects that could puncture the tube; and rims are often bent from downhill riding or dropping from heights. You can replace a tube for $5-$10: a rim can be replaced for $10-$70. However, bikes have two wheels, which make them twice as likely to get a flat, or to pop a spoke or bend a rim, doubling probable repair costs.
In summary even if you bought a mountain bike for a cost of $2000 dollars and never had to repair a single item within the period of 5 years, and another person bought a unicycle for $900, broke the crank arms once (often times free with some company‘s lifetime warrantees), got 10 flats ($75), bent 2 rims ($125), and had to have a few other miscellaneous repairs ($200), the cost would still be less than the bike by several hundreds of dollars.
Unicycles also excel in safety, not only to the equipment, but the rider. On a unicycle the wheel is a direct drive, meaning you must pedal for it to go and when you don’t pedal the wheel does not move. This being said it is only possible to go a certain speed on a unicycle, depending on how fast you pedal, size of wheel, and crank-arm to wheel ratio. The average speeds on unicycles per wheel size are as follows:
Actual Averages over a long distance (miles per hour):
32”-36”………………12-14 mph (Up to 50+ miles with 130mm cranks) 29”er………………8 mph (Casual ride, with 125mm cranks) 29”…6.5mph (Cross country/mountain unicycle [Muni], 150mm cranks) 26.……… 7 mph (Casual 170mm cranks)
24”…. Muni…5 mph (Racing cross country /Muni with 170mm cranks)
24”……Muni…3 mph (150mm cranks casual)
20”…………………4mph(125mm cranks, casual)
In the case of a Bicycle the wheel can “freewheel”, meaning that no pedaling is required to move. Meaning that one can reach speeds in excess of 30mph very easily, which can cause the rider to be thrown from the bike and injured severely, or even cause death.
Scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reviewed bicycle deaths and injury data from 1999 through 2003 and found that some 1,000+ people died each year from bicycle crashes. Head injury was involved in 62 percent of those deaths. Some 558,000 people sustained bicycle-associated injuries each year, and of those, 32.5 percent, or 181,000, suffered head injuries. But in the case of unicycles, injuries are less common and usually less severe with less than 5 reported deaths by unicycle in the past 25 years.
The reason for this is not only due to the direct drive ratio, but the fact that you can put your feet onto the ground in all 360° of a unicycle if you were to fall off, where on a bike you can only step to the side when you are moving forward, and can also easily get thrown forward or tangled up in the bike, preventing your feet to land.
Not only keeping safe, but healthy is another reason that unicycles are more advantageous. Both Unicycles and Bicycles alike have advantages in that you get good exercise, fresh air etc. from them but if you look deeper you will see the benefits of a unicycle are often much greater. You gain determination and balance as an obvious benefit from riding the unicycle, but you also gain calf and leg strength and improve your posture also. On a bike you do not have to pedal constantly to move so your legs do not gain nearly as much as riding a distance on a unicycle. You would have to essentially go 2-4 times the distance on a bike to gain the same benefit as riding a unicycle.
In summary of all of these things. The unicycle, in the case of the mountain variation, is more cost effective, physically advantageous, and much safer than the average mountain bike and should not be viewed as a circus toy or clown act. In recent years (1990-2004), the growing number of unicyclists has almost doubled each year and the number of unicyclists who ride mountain or trials/street variations has quadrupled since then. I predict that sometime in the near future that, unicycles could become a very common sport among outdoorsmen.
By, Eric Pearson
Take whatever you want, and if you don’t feel like crediting me, you dont have to.
You’re speaking gibberish to me. What’s a forensics comp? What’s an IS? What exactly are you doing?
When I think of forensics comp I think of computer forensics and that’s not making any sense in the context of your post. 
Forensics is on my my Highschool classes. It bassically coveres different forms of acting, speaches, and interpretation. There are competetions where you read speaches/poems and do acting evens. IS is an informative speech wich is what im doing. Im trying to write a small speech that will last about 7 minutes about unicycling.
We called that debate class or speech class or speech communications. Now they’re pulling out the $2 words and calling it forensics. I guess I’d better get with the times.
John,
fo·ren·sics n. (used with a sing. verb)
Here are some words that can be substituted for the word, “forensics,” using definition #1: debating, declamation, demagogism, elocution, eloquence, homiletics, lecturing, oratory, platform oratory, public speaking, pyrotechnics, rabble-rousing, rhetoric, speaking, speechcraft, speechification, speeching, speechmaking, stump speaking, wordcraft.
I always think definition #2. Do a Google search on “forensics” or “forensic” and every hit is for definition #2. Nobody but a debating geek would use the word forensics to mean a debate.
They’ve got the primary and secondary definitions reversed. The primary definition should be the criminal investigation and the secondary definition should be the debating. Of course we could sit here and forensic the issue back and forth.
My sig line says it all.
Yeah, until the issue is DEAD, and then we can apply some true forensics to figure out who killed it…
Everybody is forensic now-a-days.
In my business the CPA’s we use are now forensic accountants and the fire cause investigators are forensic engineers.