How do you make a Slinky go up the stairs?

Can a Slinky go down stairs?

Have you ever tried making a slinky walk down the stairs? It’s easy! The trick is you need a big enough slinky— i.e. you need a slinky long enough and heavy enough. If talking in physics language this means it needs to have the ‘correct’ spring constant and mass.

Why won’t my Slinky walk down the stairs?

Gravity begins to provide this force, as soon as the Slinky is cast down a stairway. This motion is sustained through a directional wave that ricochets throughout the coil and stops when the toy hits the bottom of the stairs. Contrary to how it looks, the Slinky doesn’t walk, it somersaults.

Why does a Slinky fall down the stairs?

At this point it has potential or stored energy. But once it is started down the stairs and gravity affects it, the potential energy is converted to the energy of motion or kinetic energy and the Slinky gracefully tumbles coil by coil down the stairs.

How do you make a Slinky go down stairs?

Does Slinky work on carpet?

Below is what you need to make the Slinky walk. 1) Steps cannot have carpet on them and they have to be 7 5/8 -8” deep. 2) A ramp can also be used 4′ long and 10” high.

How does a Slinky move?

What is moving along the slinky? The up down motion moves along the slinky. This wave is a movement of motion! This wave is called a transverse wave because the motion of the slinky is sideways to the motion along the slinky.

Do they still make slinkys?

Although the Slinky company is now owned by Alex Brands Inc. of Fairfield, N.J., Slinkys are still made at the Hollidaysburg factory, near Altoona, on the same machine Richard James invented.

What can Slinkies do?

A slinky is a pre-compressed helical spring. It was invented by Richard James in the early 1940s. It can perform a number of tricks, such as traveling down a flight of stairs, while moving end over end. It can also appear to levitate for a period of time after it has been dropped.

How do you fix a stretched out Slinky?

How to Fix a Stretched Out Slinky
  1. Lay down your slinky on a flat surface.
  2. Take one end of your slinky and insert it through the hole.
  3. Pull it back up through itself until the other end of your slinky.
  4. Keep pulling up until the other end, and voila! Your stretched out slinky is now fixed.

How is a slinky like a sound wave?

What are the forces acting on a Slinky?

Assuming a vacuum, the pertinent forces acting on this Slinky as a whole are the force of gravity, a tension force from the object holding the top of the Slinky, and spring tension within the Slinky. Initially, the Slinky is stretched out in hanging equilibrium.

Can you Unstretch a metal Slinky?

How old is the slinky?

The Slinky was invented and developed by American naval engineer Richard T. James in 1943 and demonstrated at Gimbels department store in Philadelphia in November 1945. The toy was a hit, selling its entire inventory of 400 units in 90 minutes.

How would you use a slinky to show that waves transfer both energy and information?

Longitudinal waves are often demonstrated by pushing and pulling a stretched slinky spring. In the diagram, the compressions move from left to right and energy is transferred from left to right.

How do you make a slinky wave faster?

What happened to the guy who invented Slinky?

Richard James died of a heart attack in 1974 in Bolivia. Betty died on November 20, 2008, age 90 of congestive heart failure at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Why was the Slinky so popular?

Increasingly popularised in different forms, including the rainbow and ‘slinky dog’ variants, the slinky continues to be a popular toy because of its simplicity, and has even earned acclaim as the ‘National Toy of the United States’.

Where did Slinky come from?

Mechanical engineer Richard James invented the Slinky by accident. In 1943, he was working to devise springs that could keep sensitive ship equipment steady at sea. After accidentally knocking some samples off a shelf, he watched in amazement as they gracefully “walked” down instead of falling.

What happened to Betty James Husband?

In the face of declining sales, her husband left the family and moved to Bolivia in 1960 to join Wycliffe Bible Translators. She took over management of the firm, and responsibility for the family’s six children, running it for almost 40 years until selling the company to POOF Products of Plymouth, Michigan in 1998.

How much did Betty James sell the Slinky company for?

The couple sold 400 of the toys in 90 minutes for $1 apiece.

How much money has the Slinky made?

With these advancements, James sold more than 100 million Slinky units in the first two years of production; as he kept the price of the toy at $1, he raked in the modern equivalent of $1 billion in revenue.