Energy Used

The intensity of the activity whether walking or skateboarding would make a difference in calories burned...

..."Skateboarding provides literal highs and lows in your workout and can get your adrenaline pumping, but it doesn't help you burn calories at a rapid rate. Harvard Medical School notes that people who weigh 125, 155 and 185 pounds will burn just 150, 186 and 222 calories, respectively, during a 30-minute skateboarding session. Activities that burn calories at a comparable rate include softball and walking at 4.5 mph."...

https://woman.thenest.com/skateboarding-good-losing-weight-17765.html

Probably any light aerobic activity will be about the same calorie burn rate....

https://www.verywellfit.com/walking-calories-burned-by-miles-3887154

It would also depend somewhat on the terrain. Walking through grass requires a lot less work than skateboarding through grass for example.

Skateboarding should in theory burn less I would have thought as long as the terrain is fairly flat and uniform allowing you to coast along and conserve energy.

In the interest of simplicity, assume dry, level pavement in all cases. I'm trying to keep it simple.

Do I burn more energy walking or skateboarding.

It will be exactly the same.

to get up speed to coast, more energy is burned than to continuously walk.

same distance*human calories = same energy

That is assuming equal efficiencies of walking and skate boarding. To say the energy use would be the same is to say the throughput efficiencies to the two methods of locomotion are equal.
I am not confident that is the case.

If you move an item with a mass from point A to point B over the same distance and at the same speed you looking at more or less the same work/energy necessary to do so.

The main difference is the propulsion effort. But since you said that you do not want to look into time I guess you are not interested in power.

But I think you should be!

Walking, without doubt. Wheels make things easier, not more difficult!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport

We don't know what tricks you will perform during either activity, so one can probably make either activity to burn more energy. I expect that the lowest possible energy expended by a person moving a mile would be with a skateboard on a hard surface down a gradual slope for a mile.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=ministry+of+silly+walks&&view=detail&mid=2672234111D389AC716D2672234111D389AC716D&&FORM=VRDGAR

My guess was that the energy consumed in either case would be roughly equal. The rate of energy consumption would be different, since skate boarding would take less time.

Thanks.

The wheel is likely more efficient use of energy. Net work is similar but not identical, you need to move the mass of the skateboard as well as your body.

I think you really need to know the muscle groups needed to propel the skateboard, compare the relative efficiency of the common muscle groups whether at high load such as pushing off, or low load while walking. The mass of the skateboard enters in, you could be working with such small differential values you may need to account for wind resistance, for instance.

Tough experiment to stage, if you can’t calculate....

You are moving a mass from A to B. If you walk the mass is just you. If you skateboard the mass is you plus the skateboard so more energy is consumed.

That doesn't correspond with the information in the Wikipedia article referenced above. ⇑

Well unless Wikipedia found a way of circumventing the laws of physics more mass over the same distance = more energy consumed.

"... more mass over the same distance = more energy consumed. ...."

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So there is this really great deal on square wheels at a shop down the street. I'm interested in fuel economy and these wheels are half the mass of my typical round wheels on my car now.

Replacing my typical round wheels with these new light weight square wheels will reduce the total mass of my vehicle, so I should get better fuel economy, right?

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Oh wait! Looks like the new triangular model has just come out and it is even lighter!

Round wheels need energy to move them from A to B and have a friction loss at the axle but the axle remains at a steady height from the ground. Square wheels have the same translational energy consumption and axle friction loss but more energy is needed to raise and lower the axle as the wheels rotate over the corners. Triangular wheels have the same translational energy consumption and axle friction loss but the flat edge is nearer to the center so the axle rise and fall is greater and they use even more energy. Now consider no wheels (walking). No friction loss, no additional mass moved, no extra energy used. Ignore the man for a moment and just consider the skate board. Can you get it from A to B without using any energy? It does not matter if the man rides the skate board or carries it, more energy is needed. Wikipedia is confusing the perception of energy used with the physics. To rewrite the laws of physics you need a funny little mustache, sticky out white hair and an accent that emanates from Ulm in Germany.

That would be entirely true of the force were acting in the direction of travel. Were the direction of travel and the gravitational force perpendicular to each other, then the Wikipedia article becomes more relevant.

Just a note; in a perfect regenerative braking process if the elevation is the same at the beginning of the transportation cycle as the end, and with all other drag and aerodynamic variables identical, it would take no more energy to travel the same distance regardless of the mass; other than the effect mass has on bearing losses and road/wheel fiction losses. Although mass linearly increases the energy required to accelerate to any given velocity that energy is returned in braking.

"... in a perfect regenerative braking process... ...with all other drag and aerodynamic variables identical, it would take no more energy ... ... other than the effect mass has on bearing losses and road/wheel fiction losses.."

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Hmmm. Well, you get it back at the end after all that so it could represent no greater net energy exerted. Energy expenditure will be greater, only a large portion recovered.

It depends significantly on a number of factors unspecified in the OP. Some of those you have provided more information for in the comments, such as dry level ground. Still, more is needed.

Two important factors:

What is your level of experience skateboarding? Can you propel yourself with a minimum of extraneous exertion in smooth path that seeks to both minimize distance traveled for a particular destination and maximize coast down times? Or are you a novice who will have a lot of exertion to maintain balance and rarely get close to the best path?

How hard are your wheels and how large are these compared to surface roughness?

Given what you have outlined so far, you should be able to make the trip with less more efficiently on a skateboard if that is your goal and you have the proficiency.

Less more? Wow.. that's a lot.

Agreed. On a perfect flat bike path on a nice board I could go for miles easily. Not that I do anymore.. bikes yes

So very many times I've seen people get off and walk their bike up a steep hill. (Doing this will probably disqualify you from the Tour De France but most people are not as athletic as those riders.) It all depends on the terrain and elevation displacement of that unknown mile.

People who don't know how to shift into a proper gear.

That becomes much more managable in an infinetly variable human powered electro-motive power process :0)

"It all depends on the terrain and elevation displacement of that unknown mile."
Did you mean to say "rate of displacement?"

In elevation the total change in energy is mgh +(1/2mv^2) while the power is the (mgh+1/2mv^2+sum drag force*displacement)/t. The aerodynamic drag force increases as the square of the velocity, cross sectional area, and coefficient of dynamic drag; all of which would be different for that same person walking vs using a skate board.
Could the difference in energy dynamics might be imagined as the difference between a rotary system and a reciprocating system?

Ahem. If your going to pick a nit, pick the correct nit. The OP asked about the energy and not the power used.

On a more subtle point, your energy equation accurately describes what gets applied to an object to get it to another location. They do not describe the total energy produced to achieve this movement. The parasitic losses of friction and activation energy change with the method of movement add to the total amount of energy that gets expended. This is precisely what the OP is asking about. Unfortunately, the OP has not provided the details to answer. The crowd has been happily providing scenarios where either method will require less energy.

Sum Energy Translated = Work/efficiency factor
This is why high efficiency regenerative braking pays such good dividends when applied to the low throughput efficiency of a modern commuter conveyance.
In a 25% efficient process it requires 4 units of prime mover input energy to perform 1 unit of work in moving the conveyance. It then follows that for each unit of brake or gravitational energy regenerated 4 units of prime mover energy is saved.

Time is not a factor here ....a leisurely walk can cover the same distance at a much lower energy usage level...

https://ispyphysiology.com/2017/05/31/is-running-barefoot-better-than-wearing-shoes/

Ask an engineer what time it is and they will tell you how to build a watch.

I'll assume that the total energy used is roughly equivalent.

Bye.

Maybe not your best analogy, you can do better.

But to get an accurate answer to your question, the work is highly complex and detailed, and doesn’t appear to be at least in the public domain. It might be an interesting group of experiments to perform, more as a method to demonstrate controls than answer the actual question.

It appears you did get your answer, though.

Where are the double mint twins when you need some scientific analysis?

Ok. Bye.

Oh, one other thing...

they live in a rural area and its a gravel road.

I thought they lived near a cliff.

From #3

"In the interest of simplicity, assume dry, level pavement in all cases. I'm trying to keep it simple."

Give the kid a break! He asked a simple question and got bombarded with meaningless BS!

What you need is a dog that loves to run....

Look for conical wheels with a round lip shape. This shape tends to go wider from the core to the lips. This design allows for more contact patches that help reduce weight. Contact patches are responsible for managing your weight on the skateboard. And to make your rides lighter or more manageable, it’s best to have wheels with a wider contact patch.

Probably Skateboarding?

Since cellular respiration is a function of gas transfer I might propose a method to determine the ratio of energy used between the two human powered propulsion methods; simply by using the ratio of the number of heartbeats walking and number of heartbeats skateboarding.

I would begin and end the identical transport cycles with 2 minutes of rest, counting those heartbeats in the total for each cycle.

I base this simple method on the belief that the total gas exchange, O2 and CO2, will be directly proportional to the blood volumes pumped, that O2 and CO2 exchange will be directly proportional to the cellular respiration performed, and therefore energy translated?