Where's Waldo

By: Tyler Tomlin

QUESTION: Which age group can spot Waldo the fastest?

HYPOTHESIS: The 10-14 age group will spot Waldo the fastest.

PROCEDURE

1. First, I will buy/rent some "Where's Waldo" sets and use them for my experiment.

2. Then, I will test the 10-14 age group and record their times.

3. Next, I will test the 15-20 age group and record their times.

4. I will then test the 35-40 age group, 45-50 age group, 65-70 age group, and the 75-80 age group and record their times.

5. I will compare all the data and the times to come to a final conclusion.

6. Lastly, I will write an abstract describing my project in detail.

CONCLUSION: My hypothesis was correct, the 10-14 age group had the fastest times. All in all, this project was a success and a lot of fun.

ABSTRACT:

I wanted to find out which age group could find Waldo the fastest. The age groups included: 10-14, 15-20, 35-40, 45-50, 65-70, and 75-80. My hypothesis was that the 10-14 year old age group was going to find Waldo the fastest. I believed this because this group’s eyes are not under developed nor are they over developed, but they are perfect to pick Waldo out in a large crowd of people. I wanted to test this out because I was always interested in the“Where’s Waldo” books, and it inspired me to put it to the test and see which age group can find Waldo the fastest.

In order for this project to be a success, I had to perform many steps and gather all the right materials. First, I had to check out a Where’s Waldo” book from the library and gather a stopwatch from my home. Next, I gathered many volunteers from all different age groups and saw how fast they could find Waldo in an image of a large group of people. I then recorded my data and analyzed it to see which age group found Waldo the fastest. All these steps had to be taken in order to fulfill the task to see which age group could find Waldo the fastest.

After all my data was recorded, I had to find out which age group really did find Waldo the fastest. The data that I recorded showed that the 10-14 age group had found Waldo the fastest. This age group, especially the younger kids, found Waldo within a matter of seconds and it really was remarkable to observe. While the 15-20 age group was a very close second, the 10-14 age group prevailed and was the outright winner in this experiment. The older groups, such as the 50-55, 60-65, and above, showed that finding Waldo was a tough task and their times certainly reflected that. The lowest time in this test was under 5 seconds, but the highest time, however, was over 5 minutes! The data that I collected ranged from very low times and high times; this made the experiment very interesting to perform.

From doing this project, I learned that spotting objects in large crowds with younger eyes can be quite an easy task, but with older eyes it may take longer to focus and identify objects in large crowds. I also realized that my hypothesis was, in fact, correct. My prediction, that the 10-14 age group would find Waldo the fastest, was right. Their times were the lowest out of all the other age groups and showed that having young eyes, comes in handy when trying to find a hidden figure such as Waldo. Some things I could have done better in this experiment were test people more than once on separate pages; I did not do this because I could not get all my volunteers back in time for the Science Fair. I still, however, believe my data is very accurate and reasonable for this project. All in all, this project was a huge success and a very fun test to run on all different age groups and people.

DATA