- #1
Jefficus
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I have teenaged daughters, and like many of their peers, they're obsessed with their body weight. Unfortunately, since I have access to accurate scales at my gym, I've never bothered buying a bathroom scale at home, and this is now becoming a source of friction.
Rather than simply surrender, however, I'd rather turn this into a teaching opportunity by finding some reasonable way to exploit the laws of physics in computing their mass.
The simplest solution would be to hang some kind of beefed-up Newton spring scale from the ceiling, but I'm hoping to find something a bit more inventive. (And less invasive to my plaster.)
I considered using an adjustable-fulcrum balance beam and having them balance themselves against a 50 kg bag of potatoes, but that seemed bulky and inconvenient. (They'd have to go out to the garage to weigh themselves, and with the near-arctic winters we have Saskatchewan, that plan would be rejected by my users for half the year. :-)
I also considered water displacement in the bathtub, but this seems unlikely to produce accurate results in practice. (Plus it uses a lot of water and requires getting wet.)
So, I'm running out of ideas. Does anybody else have a suggestion? Remember: the goals are practicality, accuracy (say, within 1%) and educational value, with super bonus points for jaw-dropping elegance.
Jefficus
Rather than simply surrender, however, I'd rather turn this into a teaching opportunity by finding some reasonable way to exploit the laws of physics in computing their mass.
The simplest solution would be to hang some kind of beefed-up Newton spring scale from the ceiling, but I'm hoping to find something a bit more inventive. (And less invasive to my plaster.)
I considered using an adjustable-fulcrum balance beam and having them balance themselves against a 50 kg bag of potatoes, but that seemed bulky and inconvenient. (They'd have to go out to the garage to weigh themselves, and with the near-arctic winters we have Saskatchewan, that plan would be rejected by my users for half the year. :-)
I also considered water displacement in the bathtub, but this seems unlikely to produce accurate results in practice. (Plus it uses a lot of water and requires getting wet.)
So, I'm running out of ideas. Does anybody else have a suggestion? Remember: the goals are practicality, accuracy (say, within 1%) and educational value, with super bonus points for jaw-dropping elegance.
Jefficus