What Are Creative Mechanics-Themed Christmas Ornament Ideas?

[Aar0n]

Hello, PF.

I was hoping I'd be able to get your help with something. I have an incredible teacher this year in my Physics class, and I'd like to cheesily say thanks to her. She's vehement about the subject, and the only teacher I've ever had that's so. She's probably the only teacher that's ever made me care about a class. lol

She's HUGE on Christmas and has already gone all-out decorating her room (and especially her house; we've seen some ridiculous pictures of it). I plan on making a handmade ornament as that cheesy thanks and something she will probably keep forever (she's like that). Of course, I'd like to make it related to Mechanics, seeing as that's the subject in which the class is taught. Any ideas? (think light; it's an ornament after all)

Thanks for the thoughts!

Edit: Oh, and I'll update this with pictures/progress (or at least try to do so lolol).

 

[lisab]

That's so thoughtful of you! So what was your favorite part of mechanics?

 

[zoobyshoe]

You might make her a sort of mobile based on the figure from Newton's Corollary II in the Principia.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_M...losophy_(1729)/Axioms,_or_Laws_of_Motion#Cor2

This could be small enough to hang on a Christmas tree, and you could paint it to look pretty while keeping the mechanics intact. Labeling all the points in old fashioned script would make it recognizable as a geometric figure. The two pendulums could be small conventional tree ornaments (you'd prolly have to figure a way to make one a bit heavier so they'd balance, like pour a little sand inside). It would hang from point O, the fulcrum.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Idea #2 (More accessible)

Everyone's heard the Archimedes quote: "Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I can move the earth."

So the ornament would be a lever hung at the fulcrum with an Archimedes figure hanging from one side and a little globe being lifted at the other.