Flight of the bumble pig
I've been looking for a flying pig ever since Mark Headlee sent me a copy of his worksheets for an experiment with a flying dinosaur. I see the pigs every time I walk past the Hamley's toy shop in Copenhagen airport, the problem is they are about £20 each so a class set would be a bit pricey. Anyway, about a month ago I saw these on ebay for £1.50 (yes, I was searching for flying pig), an absolute bargain not to be missed so I bought 7. They wouldn't post them to Norway so I got them sent to my daughter in London where I picked them up last week. I'd never really thought how big 7 flying pigs would be but suffice to say, they caused some problems. As you can see in the video they work really well. The idea is to change the length of the string and measure the time period and vertical distance of the orbit from the ceiling, from this it's possible to find g (using a graphical method of course). I'll be writing a worksheet ready for next term that I will post forthwith. I bet my students can't wait to get back here to play with the pigs.