HACKING CARNIVAL GAMES WITH PHYSICS

1. BASKET TOSS – AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE TANI MGA BASKET LANG

(indi ang plastics!!!)

Objective: Throw the ball into the basket

The physics behind it: When I was thinking about this, I thought of conservation of momentum and conservation
of energy. When you toss the ball, it has a momentum equal to p (p=mv=Ft). When the ball hits the backboard, the
basket really doesn’t move, so the only way momentum can be conserved is if the balls retains its initial velocity,
but in the opposite direction. (This isn’t exactly the case due to air resistance, but the work of this is extremely small
and doesn’t change the final velocity that drastically.) By retaining its initial velocity in the x-direction, the ball will
go into the basket, hit the back wall, and then come out of the basket at the same speed, so you can’t just toss the
ball into the basket. So, when you throw your ball, aim along the inside edges of the basket. Upon hitting the inside
edge, the y-component of the velocity will be converted into an inward component (see diagram below). This will
help direct the ball towards a more angled collision with the back wall as opposed to the head on collision it would
have experienced if the ball had just been tossed straight in. Additionally, the increased contact between the ball and
the basket increases the work friction does on the ball and acts to reduce its velocity. This will reduce the final
velocity of the ball and help it stay in the basket.

You can draw tangent lines along the curvature of the basket, which illustrate the
new direction the ball travels in as each infinitesimally small collision between the
ball and basket take place.
 2. RING TOSS

Objective: Toss a ring on the bottle

This is probably the most difficult of the three games I’ve analyzed. From what I can think of, you must toss the ring
along a row of bottles with more x-velocity than y-velocity, so the ring sort of skims over the row of bottles.
Additionally, you must toss the ring in a way so that it is slightly angled away from the tops of the bottles (see
diagrams below).
The physics behind it: When you first toss the ring, the force of gravity will act to pull the ring down onto a
bottle. However, if you can toss the ring horizontally, its chance of landing on a bottle in the row is increased
because if it misses one bottle, it may hit any of the ones after it in line. Tossing the ring just straight up in the air
reduces the odds of landing it on a bottle because the area of the ring can only encircle one bottle top (see diagram
below). Additionally, if the ring is tossed at an angle slightly away from the bottle top, when it finally does fall onto
a bottle, the ring will lasso the bottle top and stick on the bottle top. This is more easily seen in the diagram below.
 3. KNOCK THE BOTTLES

Objective: Knock all of the milk bottles down and win a fabulous prize. To win you have to knock over all the
bottles in one shot. Seems pretty easy, until you lose. The secret to getting the bottles to fall is the placement of the
bottles and the power in the throw. The bottles often have different masses.

The physics behind it (INERTIA): When the game is demonstrated, the bottles are often put into a configuration
that closely resembles Pyramid A in the diagram. The bottles on the top are weighted more than the bottles on the
bottom. The bottles on the bottom have less inertia, so it takes less force for them to move. It is easy to knock over
the bottles with any hit.
When the game is played for real, the bottles are often put into a configuration that resembles Pyramid B, in which
heavier weighted bottles are on the bottom and lighter ones at the top. It is usually very difficult to move both the
heavy bottles on the bottom with just one shot because they have so much inertia.
The total force it would take to move Pyramid B is almost double the force it would take to move pyramid A.
Newton's First Law states that an object at rest will "want" to stay resting, so it would be harder to move more "lazy"
bottles.
The physics behind it (CENTER of GRAVITY): Also, Pyramid A has a different center of gravity than pyramid
A. When averaging the weight distribution of Pyramid A, the center of gravity would be smack dab in the middle of
the pyramid. The center of gravity is where it is easiest to topple an object over. Usually, players go for a very strong
hit towards the middle of the pyramid. Because the center of gravity in Pyramid A is in the middle, it is easier to
knock down. However, the center of gravity in Pyramid B is much more towards the middle. If the player were to
throw a ball and apply a strong force to the middle of Pyramid B, the bottom two bottles would likely not fall over
because the strike is not at the center of gravity. To use physics to your advantage, aim for the extreme bottom of the
pyramid. Hitting at the center of gravity will make it more likely for the bottles to fall over.
 4. Coin Toss

Objective: The coin toss seems pretty simple: toss a coin onto a plate without the coin bouncing off.
The physics behind it (INERTIA): Well, here’s a few things that can increase the odds of winning this game.
Firstly, if you use a very high arc with as little spin a possible when tossing the coin, the coin could land flat.
Another trick is to rub a cheeky bit of spit on the coin. Some people tend to purposely bounce the coin off one plate
in order to land in on a second plate safely.
I NEED CONCEPTS!
 5. DART GAME

Objective: Try to pop any of the balloons with a dart.

The physics behind it (INERTIA): When you inflate a balloon, you apply stress, or tension, to the material part
of the balloon as it inflates, stretching it over the air that you're blowing into it. If the tension is low (for example, if
the balloon hasn't been inflated all the way) the balloon pops cleanly, with one long crack:

But if the balloon is filled with a lot of air the stress gets higher, and scientists found this generates a very different
result. In that case, the combination of a sharp object with the aforementioned balloon.
The balloon with the higher stress fractures into many different pieces.