Can you balance on one foot? Try it – I think you’ll see you have to stick your arms out or move around a bit before you can stand still.
Now, can you lift yourself up until you’re standing on tiptoe? You might have to work a bit at finding just the right point to balance.
That “right point” has to do with your CENTER OF GRAVITY. Your CoG, as we’ll call it, is the place where all the parts of your body balance each another.
Can you balance a hammer so that all but a few centimeters of the ruler seems to stick out into space with no support at all? Go ahead – try it!
Can you find the CoG of a hammer with a ruler attached to it? Try to see if you can do it using the following: ONLY the edge of a table, a ruler, some string, some tape and a hammer. Before you try this, put a doubled towel under the hammer – just in case it falls!
If you did it, CONGRATULATIONS! If you didn’t – you might be able to make it work if you try this:
Ask an adult to help you.
You’ll need a regular hammer. For this experiment, we’re going to call the metal, pounding end of the hammer the head and the wooden end the “foot”. Also get about 40 cm (15 inches) of string, a WOODEN ruler (plastic ones aren’t strong enough for this), masking tape, and find yourself the edge of a table and lay the double towel on the floor.
To find the CoG of the hammer, follow these directions carefully:
1) Tie the string into a loop.
2) Tape the loop FIRMLY half way between the head of the hammer and the foot.
3) Slide the ruler through the loop.
4) Tape the loop of string to the ruler at 15 centimeters (6 ½ inches).
5) Hold it so that the foot of the hammer touches the ruler – you may have to adjust the ruler and string to make this happen. (It should form a sort of “A” lying on its side…)
6) PREDICT what will happen when you place the end of the ruler that is above the hammerhead on the edge of the table and gently release it.
WHAT HAPPENS…
The hammerhead should be under the table, the ruler should be sticking straight out with about ten centimeters (three inches) of ruler holding the whole thing up!
Why?
The head of the hammer is the actual center of gravity of this whole set up. Because it’s directly under the edge of the table and the end of the ruler, it acts as if it were hanging straight down.
That’s how it’s done – but how long can the ruler be and still hold up the hammer? How big can the hammer be and still be supported by the ruler? Why does a wooden ruler work better than a plastic one? Would a metal ruler work the best?
These are all good questions – now UBA SCIENTIST and find out the answers!
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1) Arulanantham Suresh Joachim, a Canadian of Sri Lankan Tamil descent, set the record for balancing on one foot, by doing so for 76 hours 40 minutes. Can you break the record?
2) Tightrope walking is the art of walking on a thin wire, usually suspended high in the air, using only your arms to balance yourself. Don’t try THIS without a safety net!
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