Falling bins are like dice

[GregT]

Falling bins are like dice. Well, weighted dice. Has anyone figured out through experiment what the probability is of which side coming up is? It's only useful if you simulate real match events (having them fall down a ramp for instance). Any numbers would be helpful

My guess is
face up - .2
face down - .4
"long" side - .3
"short" side - .1

But I would like real stats (mean probability and SD or varience would be good).

Thanks
Greg

[DanLevin247]

Oh my goodness, 10th grade math!!!


/me dies

[Trashed20]

i would guess the face dow (upsidedown) would be about 60% as most of the weight is there. You could cacluate the center of gravity and then based on what angle it land you could predict how it will land. GAHHH!!! lets just say it prolly wont be pretty.

[DanLevin247]

Trashed makes a point, and I realized that I didn't learn how to do probability equations for uneven sides, trajectories and whatnot in 10th grade

[MBiddy]

Probability is a horrible horrible subject.

[evulish]

What's the chances of them breaking?

My guess is like one box will only last 3 matches.

[Curtis Williams]

depends too much on how you hit at and what you hit it with how hard.

however, thats a good point about them being topheavy. you also have to consider that its hader to balance on the handle ends. the top face is also larger so it would be less likely to continue tubling. same goes for the sides because of the lip.

[Joe Menassa]

I have found that most fall on their side, the long way. this is the side that has the most room for them to fall on to. Also when you push over a high stack they fall together in a line, preventing them from landing any other way than on their side.

[D@ve]

Joes right on this one .We tested it out more than once and every time the fell the same way. Without anything underneath!

[Simeon]

to our surprise, once in a while they land on their side, the tall way...
but yes, most of the time, it's the long way side.

i suppose when u have the tall way, u can just run the robot at the bin, changing it into the long way.

[EStokely]

I think the reason they don't end up on thier lids more often is the way they are stacked when they fall. The tend to act as anti roll devices to each other as the come down.
We also noticed most were on thier long side after a wall was hit (all done without a ramp yet)

Certainly creates a new level of complexity. "righting" a side ways box.

[Simeon]

heh.. or in that case, maybe our robot should go out with duct tape fixing up all the broken boxes... maybe then we'll get bonus points.

[HolyMasamune]

Also you have to take into account how high the boxes are when they are dropped to see which side lands face up because the lower it is in the air, the less the center of gravity would matter because the less time the box would have to turn.

[Alex Forest]

You also have to take into account the fact that a lot of them aregoing to be landing onthe ramp, which is NOT a flat surface, and just going to mess up all those calculations again... *sigh*

[Digo]

The Pathfinder landed on Mars inside a pyramid that would always be with the robot's base side on the floor after bouncing.
Maybe its creator didn't want us to have such an easy solution for this problem.