Problem Solving through Science! | Tuesday, 3rd period

[what_the_shock]

Miguel eyed the setup today a little dubiously, but still waved everybody in.

"Okay, so this one's a classic - build a better mousetrap. For our purposes, the mouse is normal Earth-sized," he demonstrated a size of a couple inches. "Your trap can be deadly or not. Just find a way to catch or kill a mouse that works better than one of these."

On the desk were a number of standard-issue mousetraps.

"Hey, if you make a good one, maybe you can patent it. Oh, and try to make sure it doesn't damage anything but the mouse."

Comments

Sign in!

[what_the_shock]

More like a cat than a mouse, hopefully.

Re: Sign in!

[white_oleander]

Astrid Mangussen

Re: Sign in!

[onefootoutthedoor]

Peebee

Re: Sign in!

[meepmeepmeep]

Beaker

Class activity

[what_the_shock]

Build a better mousetrap!

Please be kind to the mouse.

Re: Class activity

[white_oleander]

Astrid was one-hundred percent sure she could not build something to trap a mouse better than any of the standard ones already in existence that seemed to be doing the job just fine, especially since the first solution that popped into her head involved just a little bit of poison cleverly hidden in food. That was kind of all you needed, right?

And she thought about mentioning that, and being contrary again, but yesterday had actually been really good, her mood was surprisingly excellent, and since she didn't have a good solution, she figured she'd just lean into doing something she'd enjoy even if it probably missed the point of the assignment, but, whatever, at this point, Mr. O'Hara would probably expect this sort of thing from her and would just be glad she was doing something.

And that something looked like a standard labroatory rat maze at first, until Astrid got herself some paper, some markers, and some pieces of wood, quickly drawing out little mini-versions of great pieces of art, making small mouse-sized frames for them, and hanging them up on the walls of the maze.

"It's a mouse-sized art musuem," she explained. "The layout reflects the layout of most art museums, which means the mice'll go in to see one particularly famous painting, but get so lost and confused about how the place is laid out that they'll pretty much never find the entrance again, always managing to circle by the same Renoir over and over and over, no matter which way they turn."

Ta-daaaa. Science. Probably some sort of paradox in quantum physics, or something.

Re: Class activity

[what_the_shock]

Miguel cracked up.

"Okay, so now we just need some artistically-minded mice, right?"

Re: Class activity

[meepmeepmeep]

If you think the mousetrap that Beaker built wasn't going to have snapped on Beaker's nose at least three times by the end of class, it's almost like you'd never met Beaker...

Re: Class activity

[what_the_shock]

Miguel was just going to be facepalming and making sure he didn't hurt himself too badly.

Talk to Miguel!

[what_the_shock]

Who is hoping the island isn't trying to tell everybody something after you were all small for a weekend.

OOC!

[what_the_shock]

IDEK. It was the first thing I thought of.

Though personally I'd love one that works and doesn't hurt the mouse.