[null and void]

Which step did he miss?

The question? Did Brady cheat?

Background research? Where the balls under-inflated?

Hypothesis? Do under inflated balls travel further?

Test with an experiment. Multiple levels of inflation thrown by different people, log distance vs pressure vs thrower.

Procedure working? Yes they were all capable of throwing the ball, the distances and pressures were able to be measured.

Analyze data and draw conclusions. Data shows that under inflated balls travel farther for each thrower. Therefore under-inflated balls give an advantage.

Results align with hypothesis.

Communicate results, well DUH, that's what he did!

[SomeCallMeTim]

Agreed...The Fair is about learning scientific METHOD... not just super technical topics.

[William Tell]

"... well DUH, that's what he did! "

I'm not aware of ANY perfect scientific experiments. Perfection is not required. The main requirement is REPEATABILITY.

Everyone conducting this experiment should get the same result. If they don't, then a scientist would examine the experiments to determine what factors may have caused the difference in outcomes. Then new experiments would be performed until some experiment can be repeated with the same results every time.

When, finally, there exists a repeatable experiment, then it might be possible to suggest a theory to explain the experimental outcome. The nature of the theory will suggest additional experiments which can either support the theory or refute it.

What the boy in the story did was definitely science. His conclusion was probably not justified by the experiment because simply being able to throw farther does not necessarily imply that one is throwing BETTER.

What does definitively support the proposition that Brady is a cheater is the fact that what he was doing was against the rules and he probably knew it. One doesn't need a scientific experiment to establish that. That is true whether the cheating helped Brady or not.

Consider, for example, the cheating that Hillary did during the election when she unfairly had knowledge of debate questions. Whatever advantage she got was insufficient to give her a win, but she is definitely a cheater.

[Ingtar]

If he had done a proper experiment, at most he could prove was that deflated footballs can be thrown longer.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

#30. Don’t forget to factor in the air temperature and air pressure. New England was very cold if I remember correctly.

My balls deflate in the cold. Just saying!