This experiment starts our new chapter, "Science in motion". Let's get started!
This experiment was very familiar to me. Because I work at a hands-on science museum, they have this puzzle available for the kids to figure out and it is one of my favorites in the museum!
The only difference with this situation is the size. “What on earth is she talking about?’ you might say. Let me clear things up for you. Take a look at the materials.
In one hand, I hammered a nail into a block of wood and in my left hand, I hold 11 large nails. The challenge is to balance the 11 nails on top of the head of the one in the block. Before we continue…. why don’t you try to solve it? Be careful hammering in the nail! If you are a kid, ask a parent to help you! I hope you can figure it out.
Did you figure it out? Do you have a good guess of what it should look like? If you had some trouble.. that’s ok! At leased you tried! Want to know the solution?
You first lay a nail on the table or surface and use the other nails to make a criss-cross pattern.
Do this until you have one nail left and lay that nail across the others.
Then, by grabbing the ends, lift up the nails allowing the nails to drop slightly.
Then lift it onto the one nail in the block and adjust it until you feel like it is balanced and …..let go!
TA DA!!! It may take you a few tries but I hope you got it!
I decided to take it further and see how many nails I could remove without the nails falling over. It took me two tries but I was able to remove all but four of the nails!
I had never done that before! I was so happy!
I have done this puzzle a lot, but this one was different because I used MUCH smaller nails than the one at the museum. They use landscape nails or spikes! HUGE! And of course I never tried removing the nails, so that was fun!
The WOW-rating I will give a 2. Maybe so low because I have done this many times before, but this is a great example of center of gravity.
