mousetraps and your innate sadist

WARNING - SLIGHTLY GROSS POST. SKIP IF SQUEAMISH



I just got my E28 semester project description. At the very least, I have to say it seem rather interesting.

You are to design and build a device that must be able to capture a mouse, rotate it by at least 450 degrees and then dispose of it in a manner that produces maximum satisfaction.

Read maximum satisfaction. Nothing like those two words to send a couple of hundred engineers scurrying around thinking of ways to butcher mice. In fact, it even brings me back to the time when Kit Leong and I were 12; and he shared with me his dream of putting some people on flagpoles, the tips of which barely penetrated the rims of their anuses. And then gravity would play its part, pulling them down onto the flagpoles proper and causing their innards to rupture.

Ah, remember the halcyon days of our childhood. However, at time passes us by, we gain both age and (hopefully) a better understanding of physics. And people sliding down flagpoles like meat on satay sticks isn't probable. They'd more likely flop down from the top at the initial stage. Hmm, for the benefit of those among you who are retching now, I shall cease discussing the subject of people placed on long cylidrical objects. And maybe console you with the thought that our mousetraps are to be tested upon hard-boiled eggs or Roma tomatoes. Come the day of the project presentations, 2105 Etcheverry will pretty much have white and/or red stuff splattered everywhere - this is highly probable, given that the mousetraps will be ranked for, among other stuff, visual satisfaction.

I must point something out now, most engineers are wonderful people who smile at the sun, laugh in the wind and are just plain happy to let those little buggers run free. Well, most other engineers ^^. But heck, when something's worth 20% of our grade for a certain class, even the most docile of kawaai people will grow fangs. And heck, I'm sure I'll find truly awesome contraptions being produced by the most unlikely of people. So far, I've wikipediaed stuff like torture techniques, interrogation tool, dismemberment, decapitation etc. Unfortunately, the limit is not my imagination ('cause its darn uninhibited) but the materials we have to work with.

Seriously, how much potential energy can you store in 10 rubberbands? I've thought up designs where the egg (mouse) gets pierced with sharp projectiles, gets dragged through "a field of thorns", gets flattened by mallets and/or gets dismembered right at the centre. The dismembering is my personal favorite. Its rather interesting how many of our concepts are appropriations of the arts of certain devious men in history. My inspiration for the dismemberment option was the killing of Satrap Bessus, the dude who killed King Darius and got punished for it by Alexander the Great. Personally, I think Alexander was done a favor, but nooo, theres that whole honor in battle issue. So what happened was the grecians bent two trees so that they crossed each other and tied them down with rope. Then, they secured Bessus's limbs to the branches that were on opposing sides. The swoosh of the axe descending on ropes followed after and the trees naturally snapped back into their original position. Unfortunately for Bessus, his body got ripped along its point of symmetry somewhere along the way. Tough luck.

I can imagine that that would certainly be satisfying. However, for now; I've got to keep my head on my shoulders and produce a basic device that will fulfill the requirements before adding on more fancy totally awesome stuff.