Using items found at home or spending NO MORE than $3.00 for materials, construct an apparatus that will drop a raw egg (without breaking) from a height of seven feet to the floor in exactly 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Points will be subtracted for any deviation of five seconds plus or minus.
Huh?
Okay, I am sure that Einstein is just rolling over in his grave at how simple this is and what an idiot I am for not sending a note back to the teacher stating; "Give me a break already, why don't you at least challenge me?". Unfortunately, I was stumped. We tried a number of things using pulleys, offsetting weights, etc... After all our trial and error and about a dozen eggs we concluded the following:
Dropping an egg seven feet was a piece of cake. Dropping an egg seven feet without breaking it could be accomplished at least 3 out of 5 times at least 80% of the time. Dropping an egg seven feet without breaking it in exactly two minutes and thirty seconds without hiring an engineer and constructing sophisticated machinery (We tried but no one would touch the project for $3.00) was impossible.
Now, if like Einstein, you think I am an idiot by all means e-mail me and tell me how simple this was as I am still trying to figure it out. My son has already blown the project, I just want to know for my own morbid curiosity.
This is just one example of homework assignments that are sent home. It's really frustrating to be a college graduate and yet have to tell your ten-year-old that you don't have a clue how to complete their homework. Fortunately, there is some help thanks to the Internet. Here are three sites I have found to be helpful although there are considerably more:
Go To Page: 1 2
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Mike Gowen's Single Fathers topic, please visit the Discussions page.