You probably thought Angry Birds was just a fun distraction that's not meant to be taken seriously. If so, you were wrong. Angry Birds is very serious business. As evidence of that fact, the Western New York State Physics Teachers’ Alliance has started using Angry Birds on its tests.
The questions ask the test taker to analyze a clip of Angry Birds in motion, and then describe the motions of the birds using physics equations. The physics of the Angry Birds world, as anybody who has played it knows, doesn't mirror our own world. Gravity is much weaker and momentum doesn't quite work the same way. The questions from the test highlight this fact.
One of the questions reads: "Make a reasonable estimate for the size of an angry bird, and determine the value of g in Angry Bird World. Why would the game designer want to have g be different than 9.8 m/s²?"
"G" in this case stands for gravity and "9.8 m/s²" is the constant rate of gravity on the surface of the Earth (which means that, ignoring any other factors like air resistance, a falling object's speed will increase by 9.8 meters per second.) Unfortunately, while we've read enough Carl Sagan books to understand the question, we can't provide you with the answer. Does anybody still have their high school physics book lying around?
There are some other neat questions on the test, and we applaud their attempts to make kids think about their entertainment in a slightly different way:
"Does the blue angry bird conserve momentum during its split into three?
"Does the white bird conserve momentum when it drops its bomb? Why would the game designer want the white bird to drop its bomb the way that it does?"
What we'd really like to know is whether or not the test-takers were afforded the chance to buy the Mighty Eagle for 99 cents to bypass a question. Let's see if anybody can nail down these questions for us in the comments section. Winner gets a gold star (and a wedgie for being a know-it-all nerd.)
You can follow the author of this article on Twitter: @sciencegroen
Geoduck
June 20, 2011 at 2:35pm
"Does the blue angry bird conserve momentum during its split into three?"
Yes. It appears that the single bird and three birds have the same forward velocity. In addition the downward velocity of the bottom one is equal but opposite to the upward velocity of the top one. The middle bird appears to follow the trajectory the single bird would have followed."Does the white bird conserve momentum when it drops its bomb? Why would the game designer want the white bird to drop its bomb the way that it does?"
No. The bird is not acting like it drops the bomb. Instead the bombs forward motion disappears. It drops vertically as if the bird were stationary when it was dropped. However, when the bomb goes down the bird is deflected up as if it were a projectile fired downward and the bird is deflected upwards by recoil. The bird however does maintain it's forward motion in contradiction to the bomb. I can only surmise that the programmer wanted to both make the bomb easier to aim and allow the player to use the bird to impact a tall structure downrange.This was fun.
Andrew Groen
June 21, 2011 at 8:13am
Gold star! I'll be coming for that wedgie soon, though. So watch out.
But seriously, loved the reply. This is why I love working for Mac|Life. You guys are the best.
