Was playing Don’t Break the Ice today and I was wondering if someone could explain the science concept behind what holds the ice pieces together. Preferably a little deeper than just “pressure of pieces in a small space.” I looked online but it didn’t help me out very much lol.
Eta this is literally to explain it to a 5 year old
In: 446
Jamming, friction and size tolerances. Springs don’t come into this.
When the game starts the size of the cubes means there is very little dead space between the pieces and the frame of the game board; this is the size tolerance coming into play. Loose tolerances means each piece would have a large variation such that some configurations would not fit or some would fall without external interference.
The tight tolerances mean all of the pieces are touching each other which creates friction. The sides may have texturing to improve grip but even smooth sides would have enough friction to hold up hollow plastic pieces.
The shape of the pieces are cubes. Any rotation of the cube means that the length of the cube within the plane of the game board increases. As gravity pulls all of the pieces down, friction causes each piece to rotate slightly causing a jam. You can see the jam loosening as the game progresses when the pieces begin to sag more; this is due to more space being allowed to rotate.
If there was no friction the pieces would all fall straight down unless the edges of the frame were tapered to force a jam. Sometimes a piece might fall randomly after setup due to the settling of the board preventing that piece from jamming (everything pulls away from it somehow).
Another example to show to a five year old would be trying to pour some sort of large particle through a narrowed opening. Something like a marble run game with too many marbles where they all get jammed up and stop. Removing a marble or two might be safe but eventually they all go down the course.
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