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.
It’s friction, the ice cubes all hold up because friction is stopping their fall.
The friction occurs on the sides of each cube together each other.
This is applied by the pressure it takes to get them all into position.
I feel like the best way to go in depth is to get mathematical.
The maximum force of friction that can be experienced between 2 objects is defined as:
F (friction) = μ * R
μ is something called the coefficient of friction, and in this case just think of it as some number, seeing as it will be constant. Don’t worry about it. R, however, is something called the reaction force, and it’s the force that makes it so that if you press on a table, your hand doesn’t go through it. The harder you press your hand on that table, the larger the force you are applying to the surface of that table. So, the surface of the table pushes back with a greater force, equal to the force you’re pushing down with.
In short, the more pressure you apply to something, the greater the reaction force between you and whatever you’re applying pressure to. A greater reaction force means a larger frictional force.
In “Don’t Break the Ice”, there is friction between the ice blocks. As long as the maximum frictional force (μ * R) acting upwards is greater than or equal to the gravitational force on each of the blocks acting downwards, the blocks will not move/fall.
In the game, when you remove an ice block, you take away some of the compressive force from the board/whatever it is. So, you reduce the frictional force between all of the blocks. So, the forces holding the blocks up gets smaller and smaller, while the force pulling them down stays the same.
Sorry if this was long winded or too complex. I did my best to make it simple.
The little plastic flaps on the inside of the frame act like springs. The ice cubes are slightly too large to perfectly fit inside, so they press on those flaps. Those flaps press back (Newton’s 3rd law, equal and opposite reaction). The compression force causes friction between the ice cubes, preventing them from falling.
You can demonstrate this by taking a block in each hand and supporting more blocks in the middle by pressing them together. By slowly releasing that pressure, eventually they can fall out.
Pinch one of the blocks between two fingers. Even though you’re only applying pressure from two sides it doesn’t fall. If a block is in between two blocks on opposite faces it won’t fall either. The pressure on the blocks is due to the fact that the 5 or so blocks in a line are slightly longer than the square opening in the game. Forcing them in there is easy because it’s thin plastic pieces but it does squeeze the blocks together creating pressure.
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