timeline

Lilypie First Birthday tickers

countdowns

Craig Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers Anniversary

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Random Question

So since i am a dork if I ever post it will be something funny (at least to me) like:

Q:
You're trapped in a well with a goat and a slinky. Describe how you will escape.

My Answer:
I would have to check the structural integrity of the goat horn. Also the non-unit k factor for a spring has to be calculated so that the exact force for the slinky can be calculated. Then carefully break away a stone from inside the well and sharpen it against another stone to create a saw. Use this rock saw to remove the horns from the goat. Carefully tie the horns to the end of the slinky with goat hair and use it as a grappling hook. To do this however, the force of gravity as well as drag forces applied to the grappling hook need to be calculated carefully also the projectile motion of the grappling hook needs to be precise so that the hook doesn't crash into one of the walls before leaving the well. Now with all this information a force balance can be created using drag gravity and the spring force as negatives and the strength of the throw as a positive. If you find the tunnel is too high by the projectile motion calculation or that the k value of the spring is too high you may want to use the goat to kick the hook with its hind legs. But if you do this make sure you have calculated the inertia of the hook also you need to understand momentum and energy transfer calculations or everything may just fall apart. Vector calculus may help as well, but that gets tricky without a pencil and paper. Once the hook is thrown into place outside of the well and well secured stand behind the goat and let it kick you so by its force as well as the tension in the spring you will fly up and out of the well. Again the previous momentum and energy equations apply here. Also make sure that you are on the closest side of the well to where the hook is attached because as you all know torque is equal to distance times force and you don't want a huge moment issue. So this should do it. Unless you are me in which case my mass is quite large and a large enough acceleration wouldn't be able to be applied to move e my 1250 Newtons.

3 comments:

Christene said...

WHAT???? You lost me at grappling hook. :-)

Marilene said...

Don't worry. That was Trevor, not me. He's the technical one.

Cyndi said...

Dude, if I was stuck down a well with a goat and a slinky I would most likely end up talking to the goat and tangling the slinky! Cute blog by the way. Welcome to the blogging world!