Who says Jaiku is useless?



Bouncing Ball, originally uploaded by baslercast.

It’s just another tool and it makes possible some quick connections that lead to bigger things. Connections are good- no matter how trivial they might seem.

Last night I noticed Basler bookmarked the same water balloon catapult I did. I mentioned that in a comment. He responded with a flickr link to a water balloon launcher they made for physics last year and then I found the picture above, in which students took a photo and then explained the physics demonstrated by each picture (description below). What a cool idea and it seems to be part of a larger AAPT photo contest.

It shows the period of time during which a ball was compressed against the ground after being thrown towards it. During the period of time which the ball is compressing on the ground, the ball’s kinetic energy is transferred into elastic potential energy. The ball is also dissipating some of its energy which results in the ball not bouncing back to its original height.

One thought on “Who says Jaiku is useless?

  1. “Give me your clever, your excited,
    Your creative masses yearning to post free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming server.
    Send these, the pageless, tempest-tost to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

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