the final round of egg drops

egg drop - round 2

i took more pictures this time since i wasn't as pressed for time...

the boys hard at work.  the brothers were here but my russian girl was in russian class again.  dong hyun didn't want to do it at all because he was still embarrassed fromt he first drop (and his egg's glorious explosion).

this is a smile that only a mother could love.  kyum jae copied young gwang's last design but added protection on the sides.  one problem however was that he put the egg a bit too high in the cylinder.  of course this caused it to rotate in the air instead of dropping down straight. 

hongmin essentially did the same thing that kyum jae did the first time.  wrap a bunch of paper around the egg.  it was his first attempt since him and his brother were on a family vacation last week.

young gwang wasn't happy that i told him that i didn't like his design.  especially since the egg wasn't attached to anything and was simply rolling around inside the cylinder.  he was trying to make a parachute.

so he took it apart and redid it.  the parachute became much better.

in woo put protection on all sides of his design this time.  however, he didn't understand in which direction the cylinder is stronger so he dropped it the wrong way.

camera shy chanmin took the most time making a very complex design that was essentially a combination of kyum jae and in woo's old designs (i.e. wrapping a bunch of paper around the egg and only putting cushion on one side.

paper wrapped around the egg = FAIL

even though his design rotated in the air, kyum was very lucky.  his egg survived.  i wasn't sure why until i compared his egg to the others.  it was about half the weight of all the other eggs.  he had a significant advantage because of that.  so even though he had to rely on his secondary protection (something that young gwang lacked before), it was enough to save the egg.  luck FTW!

young gwang's parachute actually did a good job of making the egg fall lightly.  however, he barely had any paper left to protect the egg so it still cracked (you can't see that very well in the picture).  FAIL

i think in woo's design had a chance if he dropped it the right way.  even so... using the weakest side of a cylinder = FAIL. 

chanmin put a ridiculous amount of paper around his egg.  it took forever to take off.  you can see the light glistening off the egg goo in the last pic.  his overly complicated design combined a bunch of horrible ideas together.  FAIL

we're going to do the egg drop one last time and the students will get more rewards if they can do it with less sheets of paper.  i think they're finally starting to understand some physics concepts.  hopefully next time there'll be some eggs saved by skill rather than luck.

the infamous egg drop

today i decided to start an ongoing science project with my students.  my science lessons have always been the most popular (they really liked the static lesson i gave them last year).  so i thought i'd teach them some physics with the old egg drop.  the drop would be a distance of 3.75m.  all they could use was 5 pieces of paper and an arm's length of masking tape.  as i expected, no one passed their first attempt.  we'll be trying again next week.

all kyum jae did was wrap crumpled paper around the egg.  FAIL

you can see my scribbles on the board behind him.

in woo looks evil in this picture thanks to my hands shaking.

his design was not balanced properly and it flipped over to the unprotected side.  FAIL

young gwang's design was the one that i said had a chance of working.  i told him that it all depended on how it fell. 

dong hyun is a 7 year old.  he had no clue what he was doing.  his egg completely exploded.  it was actually kind of awesome.  FAIL

you can see the egg residue on the newspaper where the impact happened.  i didn't bother making him open it up all the way.

young gwang's design made a loud thud at impact and then had a nasty second bounce.  he didn't think it survived but i made him open it anyway.

look how happy he was when he found the egg unbroken.  upon further inspection, however, we found a nasty crack.  i could only give him partial credit.

the rest of the students were too embarrassed to let me take pictures of their results.  i kind of wish i had a video of that egg exploding though.  it really was awesome.  my class was small today as the two brothers are on vacation and my russian girl was in russian class during this lesson.

we'll see how they do in round two.

more musings about the draft

warning: yet another boring entry on the nfl draft.  can't help it... need to get all this out of my system.

more about the ravens:

i'm still not happy about the ravens drafting flacco.  i guess he kind of is a local kid since he played at delaware... but still.  he's not worth a first round pick.  i do however forgive them for not drafting a corner because they were able to get fabian washington from the raiders for just a 4th round pick.  he's a former first rounder, who at just 24 has plenty of starting experience.  the raiders had to dump him after the deangelo hall trade.  he'll be able to contribute immediately at a cheap price.  i like it.  getting tavares gooden in the 3rd is nice as he looks to be ray lewis' eventual replacement.  not very thrilled about tom zbikowski, the crazy looking white safety.  but he was only a third round pick.  i find it funny that the ravens picked up haruki nakamura.  he's the only japanese player i'm aware of ever getting drafted into the nfl.  he'll probably be nothing more than a special teamer if he even makes the roster.  even so... it's kind of funny to have a japanese guy on the team.  we did have will demps, the half-korean for a while.  so maybe ozzie has a soft spot for asians.

more about the stupid titans:

they finally took a wr in the 4th round.  lavelle hawkins is actually a decent prospect.  one that i saw as a bit of a sleeper.  however, i don't see him as a no.1 wr and they certainly didn't have to wait until the 4th round.  with the depth at wr in this draft, i don't know why they didn't pick up a few more instead of collecing defensive ends and tight ends.  everyone knows that i'm not a vince lover like all texas fans, but even i know that you have to put your qb in a situation where he can succeed (i.e. having someone to throw the ball to).  instead they keep collecting speedy but crappy rbs for him to hand off to.  great handoff, vince.  i still stand by what i've been saying for a year now.  not drafting dwayne bowe last year was a big mistake.  i made that statement well before dwayne put up ROY numbers on a crappy team like the chiefs. 

thoughts on some individuals:

jamaal charles went in the 3rd round as i expected.  he lost a lot of money by coming out early.  granted he may have gotten hurt had he stayed, but this was just too deep of a rb class.  i was however surprised by some of the rb's that went before him though (chris johnson, matt forte, ray rice, kevin smith).  he lands at kansas city where it's hard to tell how much tread larry johnson has left on his tires.  the kc offensive line is still a work in progress and their coach doesn't seem to understand that giving running backs so many carries is like not paying attention to the pitch count for your pitchers.  so i don't really like jamaal's prospects for the future.  he may get the chance to flash but i really don't like herm edwards.  he'll run him into the ground if he gets the chance.  jamaal should have stayed one more year... gotten a bigger paycheck... and a better opportunity to shine.

mario manningham and mike hart both took real tumbles in the draft.  but in the end they ended up in decent situations.  mario has a chance to become a no.2 or no.3 wr right away on the defending super bowl champs.  mike hart gets to play on a perennial contender as the clear backup to an often injured rb.

frank okam gets to stay home with the texans. 

josh johnson was drafted in the 5th round by john gruden, the quarterback collector.  he now has 6 qb's on his roster.  uh... they're gonna have to cut some of them.  chris simms maybe?  josh johnson intrigues me.  he ran a 4.44 and threw 43 tds to only 1 int his senior year (that 1 int bounced off the hands of his target).  granted it was in D-1AA play, but those numbers are impossible to ignore.  if he can make the roster, he's in a good situation in tampa bay.  old man garcia can't play forever.

steve slaton got picked up by the texans in the 3rd round.  i really liked slaton but i'm still not sure what happened to him.  he looked like crap last year.  it didn't help that noel devine was waiting in the wings.  but slaton looked much better in his first 2 years.  he seemed slower.  houston's actually a good spot for him because of their zone blocking scheme (with the guru, alex gibbs) and their lack of a stud rb.  if he can't beat out chris brown and ahman green over time... then he truly is washed up.

andre woodson went from being one of the top 3 qbs in the draft to a 6th rounder.  ouch.  looks like he'll take the hefty lefty's place as a backup to eli manning from kentucky.  colt brennan actually managed to get drafted by the redskins.  kudos to him for actually getting a job after being embarrassed by georgia.

players who went undrafted:

i can't believe some of the players that didn't get picked up during the draft.  many of these guys have already been snatched up already though as undrafted free agents.

erin henderson.  how did this guy not get drafted?  most mocks had him going in the second round.  mike mayock had him as his #5 lb.  he was a semifinalist for the butkus award last season.  if there's one thing that md can produce, it's linebackers.  his brother, e.j. is the starter in minnesota.  there are concerns about some injuries he's had... but enough to knock him out of the draft entirely?  i don't get it.  interestingly enough, minnesota snapped him up right after the draft to a ufa contract.  they actually signed 16 guys right away.

marcus griffin is one of those 16 that minnesota signed right away.  marcus is not as talented as his brother (a first rounder last year) but i did not expect him to go undrafted.  he was productive enough and played against top competition.  i seriously don't understand the nfl sometimes.

adarius bowman.  wow.  this guy had the worst lead up to the draft that i've ever seen.  he went from being a possible first rounder to this slow wr who couldn't catch a ball to save his life.  he put up some great numbers in college but that wasn't enough to offset how terrible he looked at the senior bowl and the combine.  i feel bad for this guy.

i'm really amazed at some of the other guys who didn't get picked (paul smith, drew radovich, dj hall, ali highsmith, vince hall, etc).  these are guys who were very productive in college.  really makes me wonder when i see so many small school guys get picked up in the late rounds over guys who got their jobs done against good competition.  it's not that i'm anti-small school talent (i'm a josh johnson fan for crying out loud) but it almost seems like it's the en vogue thing to do.  every gm seems to want to be that guy who finds that diamond in the rough with a late round pick to show how smart they really are.  in doing so, they seem to be overlooking guys who may have a better chance of making their roster.  you hear a lot about the small school guys that pan out but nothing about the ones that don't get past the first cut.

man... i really miss watching nfl games...

i feel a draft

warning:  the following is a very boring entry about the nfl draft

i'm mad at the ravens.  ozzie better prove me wrong.  but joe flacco looks like another kyle boller to me.  the guy couldn't even beat out tyler palko (an nfl backup) to win the job at pitt.  so he transferred to delaware where he put up just ok numbers against weak competition.  i would have been fine with brian brohm or chad henne here.  but not some unproven qb with a big arm.  you better prove me wrong ozzie.  i wanted a young cb.  i'm not sure what to think about the ray rice pick either.  i like him as a player but didn't see having a change-of-pace rb as a huge need.  the ravens did accumulate a ton of second day picks.  they better impress me tomorrow.

i'm happy that my skins were able to get devin thomas and malcom kelly in the second round.  i was sick and tired of the small wrs that dan snyder kept collecting.  i'm actually excited about the skins offense next season.  however, i wish zorn was just the offensive coordinator instead of the head coach.  i really wanted gregg williams to be the head coach with zorn mentoring jason campbell.  oh well.  at least he has some tall wrs to throw to now.

i like the picks parcells made with miami.  perhaps it was more luck than anything else.  jake long is a nice solid pick in a draft that didn't have a clear number one pick.  merling and henne are great value picks.  parcells was able to address arguably the 3 most important positions with his picks:  left tackle, defensive end, and quarterback.  nice job.

don't look now but the chiefs also had a great draft.  this is weird because they've been one of the models of draft futility over the years.  dorsey at no.5 is a steal.  branden albert and brandon flowers are great picks as well.  these are great building blocks for a rebuilding team.

the titans are the most retarded franchise in the nfl.  apparently they like collecting overrated rbs named chris.  chris johnson was a 3rd round talent at best when they reached for him in round one.  sure he was the fastest player at the combine (4.24) but he's small and wasn't all that productive in college.  this also after taking chris henry (another reach) in last year's second round.  then they took a defensive end from a small school in the second round.  they must have thought limas sweed would fall into their laps.  the joke's on them.  expect to see the titans picking in the top 10 next year.

the steelers made out like bandits.  they simply took the best player available even though none of their picks met needs.  mendelhall and sweed are both first round talents that they got at a bargain.  though they need some offensive line help (which they'll address tomorrow), their offensive looks to be scary next year.  this sucks.  i hate the steelers.

i'm not a big fan of houston's moves.  they traded down and still reached.  they would have been better off standing pat and taking a top cb or tackle instead of picking up another 3rd rounder.  they need to wow me with their second day picks.

the cowboys made some decent picks.  felix jones, mike jenkins, and martellus bennett are all talented players who should contribute to what looks to be a contending team next year.  they still need to get younger at wr though.

i can't believe brian brohm went so late.  he was considered a top 10 pick last year had he left early.  he still put up decent numbers last season while nursing injuries and adjusting to a new head coach.  he's the guy i wanted my ravens to take in the second round.  now i feel bad for aaron rodgers.  there's gonna be a big qb controversy if he slips up at all next season.

Trends I'm seeing in the NFL

• after the giants put on a pass rush clinic during the super bowl, teams are putting a lot of value on their offensive and defensive lines.  most of the first round was filled with offensive or defensive linemen.  even backups like stacy andrews, were signed to big money during the offseason. 
• teams are putting much less value on quarterbacks and wide receivers.  only two quarterbacks were taken in the first round.  absolutely no wide receivers were taken at all in the first round.  that's crazy.  granted wide receivers have a high tendency to be busts but this was actually a very deep crop of wrs.  then again, you only need to look at college greats like peter warrick and charles rogers to see why it may not be worth the risk.
• teams are overvaluing returners.  everyone is looking for the next devin hester (who everyone had said was a reach as a second round pick during his draft).  now it's the en vogue thing to use a second or third round pick on someone who can return kicks.  lots of small school wrs went ahead of big name players like limas sweed, and malcom kelly because they have "return value." 
• everyone wants to trade down because they don't want to pay top 10 money.  the salary structure for nfl rookies is ridiculous.  having a top 10 pick can be a fiscal nightmare.  they need to follow the nba's rookie salary structure.  then they won't have to deal with holdouts and ridiculous contracts for unproven players.  reasonable 3 year contracts makes more sense and it'll encourage players to earn that next big contract.
• RBBC (runningback by committee) is here to stay.  Most of the running backs drafted were taken with that in mind.  they're to share running back duties with somebody else.  darren mcfadden will be sharing with justin fargas.  jonathan stewart with deangelo williams.  felix jones with marion barber.  rashard mendenhall with willie parker.  chris johnson (*cough reach cough*) with lendale white.  you have to look all the way to matt forte in the second round as someone who may win the rb job outright.  everyone else will be sharing carries.  this kind of sucks for fantasy football.