November 17, 2014

We were performing an experiment to determine the power consumption of a TI-86 calculator. Part of this experiment involved dropping a concrete bust from a skyscraper and measuring the energy gained when it hit the ground. We would then measure how long it took for the bust to cool down afterwards. This cooling process was expected to last a whole night. However, due to the value of the sculpture we wanted to test, we instead used replicas that were busts of a young boy and girl.

After hitting the switch to release the bust from the top story, I ran to the rooftop of a nearby building and held a separate controller that tracked signals emitted from the sculpture. I was to press a red button as soon as it stopped beeping, which meant that it had hit the sidewalk below. When we checked the calculator, the photos that were stored in its memory had to be deleted.

We were supposed to derive the amount of power used with the time it took for the bust to hit the ground, cool down to its original temperature, and the difference in battery percentage displayed on the screen (86% - 84%).