How to measure the size of a building using a barometer…

ping-pong ball method...
Use the barometer as a weight to sink a ping-pong ball. but only just. (Dont use an overly heavy one or this wont work?...)
Add salt to the water until it floats.
You will need a known volume of water and weight of salt

Repeat at the top of the tower....

Using a complicated maths thing, you can work out the change in altitude.
That will be your height of tower.

The change of air pressure at a higher altitude will affect the amount of salt required to float the ping-pong ball.

step 1: stand at the foot of the building holding the barometer and looking confused.
step 2: when a SECOND year physics student offers to show you what he learned in class the previous year, give him the barometer.

That's not the point here

By the way, looking at the data of the Pitch Drop Experiment, you should visit the Webcam since the drop might fall any minute now! You might be the very first human witnessing a falling drop!

Some students just wrote in the answer they probably have learned from other examples of the same problem... is that learning, or just the ability to repeat parrot fashion someone elses answers?...
If you measure a fish by its ability to climb tree's, he will spend his whole life being stupid.... to paraphrase someone else....
The point is, as the question wasnt worded that way, and the student found an alternative answer.
The ability to think outside of ordinary and get the same answer is creativity, and for me, creativity and NOT following the herd, is what makes us human, therefore, any alternative answers got by alternative means are worth more than just the right answer.....

Yes the right answer is "valid", but someone getting it a different way shows a willingness to problem solve.

No one ever discovered something new by doing it the same way as everyone else before them.....

I myself have been part of a team that played around and invented a new form of SREMEC for a boat, one that could be re-used, and reset its self one the craft was the right way up....
Before that, it was all use of the same method of air-bags you got in cars.
Once inflated, they were at the end of their life.
What we used was a small case that inflated a bag, "low pressure", and hard sided.
One upright, an air-pump pumped the gas out and deflated it back to closed....
It was fed by compressed air tank, same type as SCUBA, so infinitely reusable.

If we dont push the boundaries, we stay stagnant.
Its up to the teachers to then spot and encourage the inquisitive, whilst subverting the downright trouble makers?....
That is part of their job isnt it?...

I would say we are all intelligent on here, hence, we have already had a number of other alternative methods...
We aint all trouble makers?...

So I say encourage those who think differently....
I would however ask that if they do get an alternative answer on purpose, its valid as long as they can give the expected answer at the same time.

That reminds me of the episode where they had to remote-control the Bus.....
I was shouting at the television on that one, I reckoned they had the control system completely wrong.
They did a re-think, and got it better.....

The reason I was doing all the "You have it wrong" was on the size of the steering wheel they had on the remote rig, and how much correction they were getting for a small turn on that wheel.

There is a reason why you get such a big wheel on a bus... you need to make a LOT of movement to get a small correction, otherwise, same as they did, you get the tail wagging the dog.

In all systems I have ever played with to remote-control a vehicle, the larger the movement on the controller to get a smaller correction on the vehicle, the better the control.
And on Trucks, the larger the wheel I get to play with, the better....
I know we have Power assist now...
But that is all it is, "assist".....
I do not like steering that you cant move without the engine running.
I have had engine failure too many times to be happy with a complete fly-by-wire system that ceases to function if the power cuts out....

As for duct tape, a novel way to measure the building wit tape is to duct tape one end of a tape measure to the top, and drop it.
It would have to be a manual wound reel type without any return spring....

Or you could duct tape a Barometer to one end of a 20lb fishing line and cast it up to he roof, then measure the length of line?....

Or just make up a duct tape rope with a knot every foot, drop it down, and measure that.

Try to get an old Passat 35i (The B3, between 1989 and 1993), it is designed to drive like a dream without power steering. All it takes to be able to steer without being strong is that the car must at least roll slowly. On the other hand, backing up and trying to turn the steering wheel is a nightmare! For a 3-point turn you turn the wheel into the other direction before you stop to back up, then hold the wheel while backing up. When you release the wheel right before you stop, it snaps back to center position real fast. This is the only thing you need to become used to. I used to have the version without power steering first. My current version has power steering and I found over 20 reasons why I hate the power steering.

Drive-by-wire comes with a lot of redundancy and electric brakes. I the steering fails, the car will stop immediately. The chance that the steering gearbox or the steering linkage breaks is greater than if a drive-by-wire system fails. And if the mechanical system fails, you'll notice that when you need it and then the car will drive straight through a turn. While a drive-by-wire system seems eerie, it is in fact as safe or even safer than the common mechanical system we use today.



The task was using a barometer. You can use the barometer as a weight to compensate for the return spring.


You have failed to use the barometer again!

Except that it is known that solid glass does NOT flow. It is a MYTH that solid glass flows.

Why glass doesn't flow.

And then when a F1 car gets turned around, they HAVE to wheelspin, as the turning radius is wider than the track.
A Bus has a smaller turning circle than an F1 car.

In a small light open wheel racer, its a lighter vehicle, you use a lighter touch.
It has exactly no similarities at all to the weight behind a large goods vehicle.
Small and light is point and push, you point the front wheels and the rear follows...
The weight behind a Bus gives you the tail-wagging-the-dog pendulum motion that creates over-steer as the entire vehicle swings with the weight transfer.

How the Mytbusters got it wrong was to NOT factor in the experience of driving HEAVY vehicles with remote control....
You need a light touch, much lighter than many people expect, you make a small correction and WAIT... its not instant.
You need to plan ahead, you cant throw a heavy vehicle around, even in an emergency, unless you intend to crash.
This was new ground to roller-skate remote driving MB's perhaps?... who have never tried to remote control anything bigger than a car before?...
Which is not surprising, as I think this may have been the first time ever I have seen a remote control rig on such a vehicle.
They used exactly the same rig as they had used on a previous car R/C, and I knew from the start that it would be wrong.
Different vehicle, different characteristics.
The biggest part of learning to drive larger vehicles is knowing they DONT drive like a car.

BTW, "Force feedback" is useless in R/C.
By the time the signal has got back to the controller, and been translated into feedback, its redundant, that moment has already passed, several feet ago.




No, I checked the weather to work out Humidity in order to factor in stretch to the tape.. ...[/sarcasm]

Seriously?... someone mentioned alternatives by means of swapping the barometer for a pallet of duct tape, I expanded on that, please do try to keep up with the conversation before you correct others?...