Making and Modifying Arvind Gupta Toy Car

Made a modified Balloon Jet Car with my son (see below).

TODO: Need to add a picture/video of our modified Rocket Car here.

Arvind Gupta Rocket Car Videos:

1) Match Box Dumper Truck : 
    The simplest design of the lot.
    Basically you need to know how to meld plastic buttons with a hot needle.
    I felt that even I could do that within say max. 30 minutes.

2) Balloon Bottle Car : 

3) Bottle Jet Car :

Adapting and modifying the toy car:
1) First problem was attaching the straw to the balloon using a rubber band.
    The straw was much smaller than the big balloon nozzle, so tried tying the balloon using rubber-bands.
    The straw was thin and got crushed by the rubber-band. Maybe I should have tried cellotape.
    Tried double-sided foam tape but the glue was not sticky enough.
    Fortunately I had some rubber glue and after a few tries it worked perfectly!!

2) We had a toy-car chassis so I thought why not cut out the weight of the plastic bottle.
    Just attached the Balloon straw directly to a stripped down chassis of a toy-car.
    This was the simplest Jet Car I could think of  as (at first) I didn't see any value in the other designs.
    Then I could why the bottle was used in the video :
    a) in making the balloon stay in the air.
    b) acting as the chassis of the car itself (it doesn't use a toy-car chassis like our prototype).

3) Second Problem : It worked to an extent but had to flick the toy car initially.
    But it went nowhere near what was seen in the video.
    Observed that the balloon was dragging on the ground  adding to starting and rolling friction.
    Also the wheels were quite broad and solid.
    The Bottle Jet Car video uses thin-rim wheels with large circumference and 4 holes around the center.
    Low weight, Low Friction and more distance per revolution.

How to increase distance and speed:
a) Using corrugated cardboard would make the lightest chassis/wheels.
b) Currently balloon faces forward with big end pointing forwards.
    This is inevitable as jet-end needs to point backwards.
    I would need to make a U-turn with the straw to get tear-drop shape pointing forward.
    This might reduce efficiency due to increased friction of jet maybe??
    Need to test it out.

In fact it's quite nicely challenging to try and make a better car!
What other things can be modified or changed so that it travels further?
These are things to be tried one-at-a-time as too much too soon will surely kill the golden goose.
In order of simplicity. Simplest first, complex last.

Things to Think About and Try Out with Simplest Tech. :
+ Shape (aerodynamics)
   Tear-drop shape as seen in modern cars   
   Rocket type needle-nose shape,  
   Reduce Drag and Eddies
     birds and bees use of winglets and eddies to increase stability/thrust.


+ Weight  
   Corrugated paper car (structural strength): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFWUrUc1K4
   Foam car ?
   Graphite based car?
   Aluminium + Paper (composites)

+ Friction
   Thin-Rim wheels to reduce starting and rolling-friction
   Gear system
   Lubricant
   Hovercraft

+ Rough terrain
   pneumatic tyres,
   tension-based bicycle wheel,
   shock absorbers

+ Power
   jet - air, sail (as in sail-boat),
   internal combustion engine
   solid fuel, liquid fuel, gaseous fuel
   electro-mechanical - solar, battery,

Why Dog Bites Happen and How to Avoid or Get Out of Sticky Situations

Got this shared post on FaceBook which set me thinking on this topic again. 

Cesar Millan Dog Aggression : http://www.cesarsway.com/tips/problembehaviors/understanding-aggression
 
----
ATTENTION DOG LOVERS :
Mumbai: Stray dogs mauled a nine-year-old boy from Mumbra as he was walking to school, necessitating more than 100 stitches on his face, chest, hands and lower body. His ear was ripped off by the canines and his face had deep bite wounds.
The incident triggered a wave of anger against the municipal corporation for failing to check the growing stray population. A local Corporator said, "The TMC is playing mischief as the number of dogs caught under the guise of sterilization are brought from all over the city and left in these areas."
~ TOI, Mumbai, June 27, 2014
----
This time though I wanted to capture the problem and possible solutions for later re-sharing and more research. Esp. since I've found my son trying to hide behind me at the approach of stray dogs. Also saw a Husky being taken for a walk near my house. So best to be prepared and to mentally prepare my kids to avoid any unnecessary problem with stray or pet dogs.

Below are my comments on FB and will update with more research/details as time goes by :
=======
Given the amount of anger may not be long before we see angry mind running after dogs trying to bite them.
 
But seriously, I know from personal experience what it means to be chased and be bitten by a pet dog. Got 13 injections for it in the tummy when I was kid.

I also had a pet dog who we loved for 14 years.
So I can see both sides of the story.

On the other hand I've read reports of dogs left moaning days on end with electric shock too weak to kill. Spaying might be a better solution.

That is the other side of the story.
----
It is sad that the poor boy had to suffer in the first case and poor dogs in the electrocution case too.
Wonder if any one in the world has found a solution to this problem?

I remember a guy called Cesar Millan on NGC who works with people having problem dogs (or vice versa).

Dogs are basically descended from wolves long back.

As individuals strays are quite afraid but like humans and more so as pack hunters some actions trigger their buried hunting instincts.

Most victims of such dog-pack attacks are either very young or old as far as I can remember news articles.

In fact in one movie "Gods must be crazy" the Bantu hunter advises his son that a hyena rarely attacks anyone taller than a certain height. So the small boy "increases" his height using a piece of bark.

Not sure if this is real or just a part of script.
----
 The problem is making kids esp. Small kids understand to keep still. I ran when I was small too and promptly got bitten on the ankle. Just a scratch fortunately but still had to take injections as a precaution.
Since then came to know about how and why dogs behave the way they do.
----
Resources :

I've learned and used some of these tips on my own. Found a blog with similar tips : http://www.thewayofslowtravel.com/2013/12/28/5-non-violent-tricks-to-deal-with-stray-dogs
--
Cesar tips for pet/dog bite prevention :  http://www.cesarsway.com/askthevet/dogwellness/Dog-Bites-101-Why-Bites-Happen
--
Face to Face with the wild side of dogs and their even wilder cousins Hybrid wolves (like Huskies etc.)
You can take the dog out of the wilderness but not the wilderness out of the dog. Fortunately pack instincts are just as strong for bad Or Good. So you can use the pack instinct which causes bites to stop bites too!!

In this special episode Cesar Millan explains about wolf hybrids similar to huskies what is going wrong and why. Also shows why it works and how it can work in this video : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FuLTIi7CyOk

 

NOTE : He is a professional dog trainer and has got bitten many times while helping aggressive dogs. So this is for informative purpose only. Do NOT attempt to do this on your own.
--

TED Video - Janine Benyus - Biomimicry (and resulting BioPiracy/BioProspecting)

"What is a Weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs





http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action

I was just pondering exactly the same things when I saw this elegant video.

The phrase "Simple and Natural" exists for a reason.
A billion years of solving problems have made these bio inventors experts at room temperature manufacturing. Life makes the most complicated stuff simply and easily.

We can always cross-pollinate the known from "different" fields. For what is unknown in one "field" is common knowledge or practise in another.

As you learn different things from different fields their "intersection" is what will yield hybrid/remixed ideas, techniques and inventions. In fact far from being an "intersection" it will expose the artificial boundaries erected on Nature by the concept of a field. It will reveal the underlying "Bandhuta" (bonds) beneath the apparent differences of a limited mind.

There exist AT LEAST 30 million different life forms which have been field-testing their innovations for last 4 billion years. The lady enumerates at least 12 different areas to look at for "inspiration"/bio-mimicry.

This seems like the scientists and businessman's ultimate paradise! We can rip-off inventions and not have to pay any royalty too!! WoW!!
Yet more sources of patents, inventions, Nobel Prizes and cheaper, best-selling products which can make people Billionaires over-night.

She also cautions that we need to look beyond into the legacy of strip-mining that we're leaving for our off-spring our descendents. Fulfilling our needs while making it 'a sweeter place' for other life is the path of "I'm OK, You're OK" we need to follow.

She warns that the life-forms that didn't choose this path didn't stand the test of Time to tell the tale.

Even parasites slowly adjust and co-operate with their hosts over the long-term to form either benign or symbiotic relations. Given our current adversarial, viral and parasitic relation with the rest of Nature, maybe THERE's a lesson we should learn from first?!!


=========
See Also:
+ Amazonia Bio-Piracy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CLjLTxK9pY

+ Bio-piracy and Bio-Prospecting : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52yE4HtYRpA

+ Sehdev Kumar: "Bioprospecting or Biopiracy" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKK9k3FWRCw
 
+ Antarctica based Microbial BioProspecting : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wXBoHTjR4c

TED Video - Ken Robinson on "Bring on the Learning Revolution"

Bring on the Learning Revolution : http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution

"What is a Weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

We prefer the known vs. the unknown as it makes us feel safe!
Like the thin blanket which seeks to create an imaginary cave against the looming werewolves of the night.. :-)

In order to know the unknown we need to set aside fear for discovery.

Learning being a continuous process being a permanent learner requires learning by trial-and-error. The main method of inquiry being this exploration.

We can always take the help of the known from "different" fields. For what is unknown in one "field" is common knowledge or practise in another.

As you learn different things from different fields their "intersection" is what will yield hybrid/remixed ideas, techniques and inventions. In fact far from being an "intersection" it will expose the artificial boundaries erected on Nature by the concept of a field. It will reveal the underlying "Bandhuta" (bonds) beneath the apparent differences of a limited mind.

Ideas of mankind are a Commons like the Earth "divided" into plots by real-estate of Man. These boundaries are as confining and illusory and  as those cave-blankets of the night.
The difference between ideas and real-estate is that you can't share land as easily as ideas.

=====
+ How to Change Education from the ground up (literally) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEsZOnyQzxQ
   Note : The best part of the talk is towards the very end but the preceding talk is superb too)

+ Ken Robinson on The Element : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TAqSBMZDY8

TED Ed Video - Learning Music as a Language just as a BABY learns its Mother Tongue

Music As a Language : http://ed.ted.com/lessons/victor-wooten-music-as-a-language















TED Ed Video Lesson : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zvjW9arAZ0

Learning Musical Language as a BABY learns to speak.

Why do we treat Mother Tongue differently from Music as a Language:
1) Regimented learning with a teacher a few times a week.
2) It takes too long and
3) Many times the complex rules confuse the learner
4) This confusion doesn't do too much good for the learners confidence.

How did you as a baby learn to speak NATURALLY :
1) Babies are ALLOWED to PLAY and MAKE MISTAKES.
2) The MORE THE MISTAKES, MORE THE SMILES of parents.
3) Baby Jams with proficient speakers Parents not just with other babies.
4) Baby in a musical family becomes really good just by exposure to really proficient speakers of MUSIC.

A few key things to try out:
1) Play around with the instrument
2) PLAY more than Practise.
3) Play in the company of proficient musicians.
4) More they play, more they'll practise on their own (self-driven and not externally enforced)
5) Musician is more important than the instrument
6) "Language works best when you have something important to say".

========
Q) How did you learn the first language you spoke? Were you allowed to make mistakes? How do you think those mistakes helped you learn the language? How do you think that relates to learning to play a musical instrument?
A)
At different stages of physical and mental development.
1) First came Single sounds like vowels - a, e, i, o, u
2) Next came consonants like ka, ga, etc.
    Teeth, tongue, lips were used and slowly brought under control.

3) Learned by trial-and-error. More "mistake" earlier on but encouraged with smiles from parents who appreciated the effort rather than the accuracy.
4) LOTS of encouragement, hugs and kisses from parents at EVERY stage.
5) Repetitive Double syllable "words" like "ka,ka" "ga,ga" "pa-pa"
    That's why Mama and Papa/Dada are basically repititions of same syllable in ALL languages.
6) Double syllable baby-words with Mixing of syllables "Da-I, Da-I", "KaL, KaL"
7) Triple and Quadruple syllable baby-words like "pa-pa-pa" "da-da-da-da"

8) Parents would often imitate the baby talk and smile and kiss and hug the baby.
As time progressed mistakes were gently corrected at pronunciation of words. 2, 3 and 4 word Phrases followed.

Later different turns-of-phrase were introduced depending on what I was wanting to express/convey.
So it seems that the natural way to learn an instrument is follow the same process.

The earliest musicians would have learnt similarly.
Even today there are naturally talented musicians who are self-taught.
They must have explored and gone with the flow rather than setting a fixed curriculum.
"Fooling around" or "Playing around" seems to be the best way to learn.

====

Q) Wooten says that beginning musicians should play more than they practice. Do you agree? Why or why not?
A) 
Like a baby trying out it's vocal chords with different sounds and trying different combinations a beginner musician gets a feel for the instrument what it can do, what it can't and how to play around with it.

Combinations of sounds are produced either from the throat or from instrument. Practise is repetition of a specific sound or sequence of sounds. It comes AFTER the playing around with basic syllables. It also needs more motivation which we get when we practise with proficient people. We try to imitate them. Succeed and fail and try again to imitate them better.

Also when you're alone practising you can try improvising on different ways of saying something or playing it. Finally you need to find what it is that you want to EXPRESS. This comes from exploring the various shades of your own emotion at different times and ages.

====

Victor Wooten websites : 
http://www.victorwooten.com/
http://vixcamps.com/


See Also:
+ Shafqat Amanat Ali Interview Bila Taqalluf on musical training in early years and his sons training (11:50 to 15:40) : http://youtu.be/84I-2ic8qwQ?t=11m50s
+  Shafqat Amanat Ali Interview on LokSabha TV Shaqsiyat : http://youtu.be/j6nBCRZx5sk?t=24m10s
+ Hacking your musical brain : http://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_mcferrin_hacks_your_brain_with_music
 + 6 Month Old Babies Can Sign Language Before they can Talk : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcm3AMzo1nI
+ The Linguistic Genius of Babies : http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies
+ The Birth of a Word : http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word
+ Your Brain on Improvization : http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv
+ What We Learn Before We're Born : http://www.ted.com/talks/annie_murphy_paul_what_we_learn_before_we_re_born
+ Human Nature is NOT a Blank Slate : http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate
+ What do Babies Think : http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think
+ How we Read Other's Minds : http://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_saxe_how_brains_make_moral_judgments
+ Are you "Beat Deaf" : http://www.npr.org/2014/06/24/323710682/think-before-you-clap-you-could-be-beat-deaf

+ Music and the Brain (allegedly debunking the fake products) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDfVsFxJXms

TED Video - Life Lessons Through Tinkering - Give a Man a Fish OR Teach a Man Fishing?!! That is the Question

"Give a Man a Fish and you Feed him for a Day!!
Teach a Man to Fish and he can feed himself and others for the Rest of his Life"

This video applies the same idea to Kids!!

TED Video - Turn Filthy Water into Drinking Water with JUST a Water Bottle!!

"Mind-blasting" invention to Turn Filthy Water into Drinking Water using JUST a Water Bottle!!

LifeSaver Bottle

http://on.ted.com/e0GPW
LifeSaver Bottle at Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeSaver_bottle 


Super news for India!!
Now IISC develops nano-filter : http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/iisc-novel-membrane-filters-water-kills-bacteria/article6420039.ece


Drumsticks seed a water purifier : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/Drumsticks-seed-a-water-purifier/articleshow/37776610.cms 

TED Video - A Robot that flies Uncannily and Beautifully like a Herring Seagull

WoW!!
Must watch "Mind-Blastingly" Beautiful Video of a Robot that flies Uncannily like a Herring Seagull !!

TED Video - What We Think We Know

A funny and interesting video on FOUR simple questions that stumped MIT engineers but were better answered by Kindergartners!!

"Never let your Schooling Interfere with your Education" [Mark Twain]

TED Video - How to Wipe Out Global Warming with Just a Single Tissue Paper

Stop Washing Your Hands off Global Warming. Wipe it Out instead ;-)
Instead make the world a better place with 12 shakes, a fold and a wipe!!!

I routinely tried to make do with a single tissue paper and getting my hands fully dry.
But always needed that extra paper... Good thing I saw this video!! 

Now I can wipe my hands the Right Way!!.

TED Video - How to tie your shoe-laces - The Better Way

Video that's Short, Funny, Interesting (and even Thought-Provoking)
"How to Tie Your Shoes. A Better Way!!"

Makes you think if we've MISSED THIS what ELSE is missing?!! :-)

TED Video - An Open Source Invention for the Better Half of Humanity - Women!!

An Invention for the BETTER HALF of Humanity.

A Video that's Funny, Thought-Provoking and Inspiring.
Trying to impress his wife this Indian School-Dropout painstakingly created an Open-Source Ultra Low-Cost and Amazing Invention.

TED Video - A Juicy Chunky Recipe For Music - A-rhythm-etic

Note : This post is NOT meant to be politically correct.
It is meant to convey the Experience of Rhythm. Period.

What's the  difference between "counting sheep" vs. 'counting blondes" at a bikini contest?!!

Well...
Doing counting the former Should put you to sleep and counting the latter will keep you awake!!

Amazing Video "A-Rhythm-etic - Math Behind The Beats!!"

YEAH!! You've got where this is headed...

An Amazing Video that "Puts the Blonde back into the Bomb-Shell" of Math - "Math Behind The Beats!!"


Wait!! ....

Where DID you think we were headed, hmm... ;-)

TED Page : http://on.ted.com/h0Ijd

Initially however he lost me at "the dollars and quarters" part as I was concentrating on the rush of rhythm gushing from the drums - all the different styles he showed off.


Like being at a "blonde bombshell beach bikini" party (how's that for alliteration).
You can't make up your mind where to Look ahem I meant Listen.

Slowly he goes from across the range of Rhythm - Jazz, Pop, Rap, Latin etc.
Soon you start seeing how these different rhythms are so different.
So what's common across all the different Rhythms?!! And what's different?!!

Different yet similar at the ROOT.
And what is that Root? RHYTHM!!

The Missing Piece of the Puzzle:
1) Buzz-words and terminology:
Most experts use very specific domain-related terms which also have very generic common usage.
Like what do you mean when you say "Beat" is it absolute like12 beats per minute.
I don't think so 'coz you could play the same piece at fast, medium or slow tempo.
So beat seems to be relative to the tempo i.e. sing 12 notes in a tempo for example.

2) It's a good thing it's on Video
The playing is superb but it distracts from the underlying principles.
It's also the reason why you start seeing the video in the first place.
But as you realize that you're out of depth esp. with buzz-words of that domain you start to lose hope of catching up with the bullet-train.
Fortunately since it's a video you can go over it again and again.
The TED Ed audience didn't have that opportunity to go over the whole thing then and there.
How many took the time and effort to Replay and Decode what went over their heads?!!

3) Stories, Morals and Equations:
People understand stories and extract their own Moral of the Story as per their world-view and imagination.
Math is the dry, powdered, dessicated mushroom. To turn it into a delicious soup you need to put back the Juicyness and Chunkiness of THE STORY. The characters that make it come alive. The relations, the tensions, the climax to get people interested. Moral of the story is the take-away but the story is what makes it memorable and your own.

Arithmetic though simple is an Abstract conceptual extract from a Concrete, applied Art.
Normally in academics this extraction of a skeleton from a living breathing body is done for you by people skilled at such symbolic manipulation. If a student goes through the process of inventing his own formula from a given situation(s) he'll really appreciate it. Since he can forward and reverse-engineer and hack his own formula/equation. He can name it the way he's comfortable using his own notation.

This also allows him to Hack his own formula to adapt it to new situations and constraints - more general or specific cases. Richard Feynman followed exactly the same process to create his own notation and own theorems. Though this took more time he did it on HIS terms in a visual oriented 3 dimensional way. This made ALL the difference as he could hack his own notation and develop it as he wanted

4) The audience should have had drums too
Fortunately I was NOT in the audience AND I did Have a drum I could play on. Experiencing the feel of the drum thrumming is UNBEATABLE. Without it the video becomes just a show-piece for the drummmer and a dumbing-down feeling for the audience. In fact this TED Ed Video "Music as a Language" says exactly the same thing - The Baby Jams with Proficient Speakers i.e. it's Parents.
Clayton should have allowed people to play along with him to get them to PLAY AROUND.
Get the FEEL of the instrument. MAKE MISTAKES. JAM with him.


So what IS rhythm?Any Kid who has danced or played hopscotch knows this with their entire body!!
So music is a way to play hopscotch well past childhood?!! :-D

Hopscotch = Hop, Skip, Jump, Pause


Hop, Hop, Hop, Skip, Twirl and Jump. (3 Hops, Followed by Skip and Twirl and Jump i.e. a Sequence)
Hop, Skip, Hop, Skip, Twirl, Twirl and Jump.
You can add a Pause for effect as well.

So Dance it seems is In fact an extension of Hopscotch.
Dance = (Hopscotch) + Rhythm + (Arms out, Point the Toes + Expressions + ...)
These basic units can be used in so MANY different Combinations to create a Rhythm.

How exactly you construct the sequence in what proportions determines the Quality of the Dish!!

Beat/Rhythm is how you take a time-slice and use different combinations to make tasty dishes.
Like in a recipe you need to measure out different ingredients in different proportions to get different textures, flavours, tastes and sub-tastes.


Counting and Proportion leads us to Rhythm.
a) Making a 1 Kg strawberry cake requires at most as much flour, the strawberries can be more or less.
THIS is the basic counting part - Teen Taal, Chau-Taal, Ek-Taal.

b) How much Strawberry/Flour and what's the texture of the strawberry
Putting chunky pieces of strawberries vs. putting a strawberry jam vs. strawberry cream changes the texture.
It's still a strawberry based cake or pie but it FEELS different.

With these 2 basic tools you can take simple steps and create all kinds of interesting and fun games, drums and dance!!

In fact as the drummer showcases you can come up with whole new styles just by changing the count or the proportion.


I had to take small segments of what he was saying and try to connect WORDS and NUMBERS to FEEL
I could sense the beauty of the rhythm (the blonde) but still had to word-associate "36-26-36" with a "particularly delicious shape"!! ;-)


Fortunately I'd just bought a drum for my son so just thought to try it out.
Got it off the show-case and started tapping out some random beats like I usually do with little success beyond a small sequence when things go horribly out of rhythm - kinda like tripping while trying out a dance routine.

First I just played what I liked. Couldn't see the connection though between FEEL and MEASURE.

Saw the video 4-5 times and kept at it off-and-on for nearly an hour.
Tried to work out the connections from what little I'd learnt in Music class.

Too much info needed to focus on small segment at a time. So started to count along with the drummer.

As I counted off the beats verbally at first and then mentally the abstract and the concrete merged into one. Suddenly it clicked.

Still working on it and enjoying the understanding of the range of possibilities opening up!!
Confession - I didn't get this the first time I saw the video!! In fact I had to see it at least 4-5 times just to stop the blondes (i.e. the foot-tapping rhythm) from totally switching off my head and to start seeing and feeling the underlying patterns. Much like writing this blog I had to revisit the experience and find words and numbers to try and first qualify and slowly quantify a FEELING.

That's why I've used the analogy of the Blonde/Recipe/Hopscotch/Dance/Sheep to first Qualify and later Quantify the Experience!!

A bit like the 10 Blind Men trying to FEEL and then struggle to DESCRIBE different parts of the Blonde....er Sheep!!! ;-)

===========
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-rhythm-etic-the-math-behind-the-beats-clayton-cameron#review
Q) In your own words, explain how music is mathematical.
Rhythm is about how you "dance" to the music.
To tap out a 10 step dance you could split it into 4 groups like so:
1-2, cha-cha-cha (2+3 Steps),
1-2, cha-cha-cha (2+3 steps)
----
With drums you're setting the rhythm for the dancer(s).
1-2, 1-2-3
1-2, 1-2-3
Normally if this is played in a mechanical way it would sound like a metronome.
----
The reason why it sounds so good when Clayton plays it is, I think because he's embellishing it by putting stress on different beats called up-beat, on-beat, off-beat, down-beat : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%28music%29
----
Given a fixed amount of time you need to figure out ways of spending the money.

For example 3 dollars (or 12 quarters) is what you can spend within a given time say beats.
You can spend the 3 dollars in many ways like so:
a) In Quarters every 4 beats till you run out of quarters
b) In Triplets every 3 beats till you run out of triplets
c) In Duplets every 2 beats till you run out
d) In Singlets every beat till you run out.

Or you could mix it up by spending 12 beats like so:
Singlet,Duplet, Duplet, SInglet (1+2, 2+1 = 6)
Duplet, Duplet, Singlet, Singlet (2+2, 1+1 = 6)
----
Q) Do you think math will help us become better musicians (and vice versa)?
A)
Counting and proportion seems to be the arithmetic tools for maintaining Rhythm and manipulating it.

I'm sure people learned to drum LONG before they could count. This is because most people have an innate sense of rhythm (developed as a baby listening to heart-beats of mother and natural and biological rhythms). Otherwise there would be very few people who could instinctively appreciate the Rhythm of ALL that music floating around.

What Counting etc help you do is __Maintain__ a particular rhythm and mix-up rhythms in symmetric and "off-beat" ways to bring novelty and expectation and surprise to your drumming. So it IS an essential TOOL for MUSICIANs and not necessarily for their audience.

Most folk beats would be simple and repetitive whereas classical music might use more complicated rhythms/patterns to build up expectation to a climax resulting in applause as the audience "gets it".

In fact the more you know math the more you might be unsurprised and predict what's coming.

Kids Teach Themselves Science with 15 minute Do-It-Yourself Project - Mini Generator LIghting a LED

Amazing Inventions for Kids (by Arvind Gupta Science Toys).

 
How to get children to enjoy and learn science with Do-It-Yourself projects.
Arvind Gupta shows how you can improvize Inventions from common household items or even trash.

Make a LED lighting mini-generator from :
2-CDs
Foam sheet
Rubber band
A straw
Toy electrical motor (commonly found in broken toys)
LED Bulb (found in many toys or decorational lighting)
A strip of aluminium (modified into a clamp)
A few screws/nuts (found in many throwaway items)

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