Physics Final: Egypt to Greece in 18s?

Yesterday was the awards assembly (which went 2 hrs over by the way) and school picnic, which makes today the first day of exams.

This year for my exam I had students either choose a 3 minute movie clip, and analyze the physics in it (using a minimum of four equations), or choose four physics concepts/equations to relate to philosophy, relationships, society, emotions, spirituality, etc. and write a paper about it. So far the philosophy papers I've read are remarkable: deep, captivating, demonstrating a rich understanding of physics.

The movie clips were entertaining. Most of them were of the same nature, probably because of the example I gave: calculating the height of Kazadum by timing Gandalf's fall with the Bolrog (accounting for terminal velocity, etc.) - thus most of the clips were falling clips.

This year we had three separate scenes that were chosen by the two different students:
1) Luke Skywalker's hand being cut off and him falling down the shoot
2) Elizabeth falling off the cliff after she can't breathe from Pirates of the Carribean
3) The sperm whale and a pot of petunias materializing and plummeting to the planet Magrithea from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Four people chose different scenes for the Matrix series.

But the project that won for "coolest clip and analyzation" goes to Aladin's "A Whole New World" scene where Aladin and Jasmine go from Egypt to Greece on the magic carpet in a span of 18 seconds. The student calculated the average velocity, the drag, the force of friction, and then the coefficient of friction between them and the carpet, and determined that the carpet had a coefficient of friction millions of times higher than velcro. hA! What fun!

In other news I won the Sustainability Award this year from the Earth Group, which was very exciting. I get a plaque for my wall, and a gift certificate to Kismet (an expensive local/organic restaurant) and two tickets for a free cone at a local creamery. Thanks guys!