Physics Horrors

The Singer has been working on a Physics group project at our house for a few months now. As the group is made up of 4 "A" students all taking Honors Physics, I figured I didn't need to provide much assistance (I provided refreshments and taught them how to use a drill and electric saw). I am shaking my head in disbelief at the calamity of the entire situation. The assignment was to build a contraption that had parts which set the next part in motion. For example, pop a balloon that has marbles in it. The popping of the balloon releases the marbles that then run down a track, fall into a cup and cause a lever to release a pendulum that swings and at the top of the arc of the swing it knocks over a stick attached to string the releases a cd to roll on a track that hits dominoes that fall into another cup that raises a flag. Lots of physics involved (the track has to have enough grade so the marbles continue rolling, dominoes need to be placed so even going up steps there will be enough force to continue to knock down the next domino and so on). Well...they really approached the whole thing haphazardly. Saturday and Sunday had the group working at our house for 6+ hours both days. Saturday had the Singer knocking a sawhorse over on her naked toe (I don't know why she wasn't wearing tennis shoes while working with power tools, but....). I really thought the toe was broken, but simply bandaged it up and told her we'd deal with it later. Sunday before the crew arrived, I took her to a walk-in-clinic. No broken bones, but the doctor did drill a small hole in her toenail to release the pressure from the blood so she wouldn't lose her toenail (it also made the pain more bearable). Sunday night at 8 PM I threw everyone out of the garage. The project still wasn't working, but I was assured it only needed a little "tweaking" to work. So one other girl came over Monday after school so she and the Singer could do that "tweaking". Well, after 4 more hours of work, it still wasn't working. The project was due today. Time was running out. So on Tuesday and Wednesday the Singer worked (about 5 hours each afternoon) fixing the project so it would work. I got to assist (some things needed 2 people to accomplish--a holder and a fixer). I kept making comments like "How did you think that was going to work...it doesn't make sense from a physics point of view...Did you even think about laws of physics while working on this?" The Singer was ready to kill me by the end. She kept telling me "Mom, we were just trying to get it to work." Like that excused their lack of logical thinking. Yesterday, I encouraged the Singer to re-read the directions to make sure everything was done to specifications. Low and behold, a table they had built stuck out beyond the acceptable size limit! Any item that was out of the limit would be disqualified (each working item earned points). Again...how do A students end up with something like that? I am still amazed that these 4 people do as well as they do in school, they seem to have very little common sense from where I'm standing. So the Singer had to dismantle the table (and the entire domino set up on top of it) and rebuild it and then adjust the item before and after the dominoes so everything still worked. We loaded the project into the van about 10 o'clock last night. We dropped it off this morning and we are so glad it's done!! The entire family!
I arrived back home from SC Friday afternoon, so the physics project has dominated the household since then, except for Friday night. We went to see "Wicked", the musical telling the story of the 2 witches from the Wizard of Oz before Dorothy came. The musical score is outstanding and we've had the soundtrack for quite a while, but the 2 actresses playing Galinda and Elphaba were phenomenal!!! They were the characters. Galinda is a flighty, over-the-top cheerleader type, and she played it sooo well. The costumes were spectacular. The whole thing was simply an indescribable event. And what made it even better was watching the Imp and the Singer's reactions. They were enthralled!! The tickets were the big Christmas gift to the family this year. We all wanted to return the next night to see it again. Alas, that wasn't possible! We hope it returns next year!
I enjoyed my trip to SC tremendously. John was able to converse better than at Christmas due to new meds. So we had lots of time talking and laughing. Illness makes many people uneasy, and some illnesses do effect the personality of a person, but spending time with John now is just like spending time with him before he got ill, only now he sits still instead of constantly doing things. He has always been a clown of sorts and has always had a great sense of humor. He still does! While it is heart-breaking to watch his physical body become paralyzed bit by bit, it is still just as much fun spending time with him as it always was.