High School Photo Winner's Showcase

School: Mountain View High School

Teacher: Chris Stoker

In this photo I have balanced a combination of coins on top of each other to create a bridge across two blocks. I started by placing a nickel about one third of the way off both blocks. I then stacked coins continually on top of these until they met in the middle. I had to place stacks of pennies on top of the nickels to retain static equilibrium, the physical state when the net force of an object is equal to zero throughout its whole. This means the bridge is stable and will not collapse. I have acquired this state through the careful balancing of the coins. The center of mass, the center point at which all vectors add up to zero, is typically at the center of a bridge. In my coin bridge, it would be somewhere in the center of the middle penny stack. These two concepts of physics, static equilibrium and center of mass, create the balance my coin bridge requires.