Thinking Outside the Box

[Cerek the Barbaric]

There's a lot of emphasis on lateral thinking nowadays - and that reminded me of an example that occurred in one of my high school classes. So I thought I would see if the IronWorks members could come up with the same solution my classmate did.

Here's what happened.

The teacher caught a student making a paper airplane in class. Instead of punishing him, the teacher issued a challenge - IF the student could make the plane fly past a line drawn on the floor, he wouldn't be punished at all. However, if the plane did NOT go past the line, the student would get 3 licks from the teachers paddle.

The teacher gave the student 3 tries. The airplane was a "stunt" plane instead of "jet", so it just flew in a circle on the first try. The second attempt was even worse...the plane actually landed behind the student.

Down to his last try, the student made ONE CHANGE to the airplane's design - and successfully got it past the line.

What change did the student make to ensure the plane would fly straight?

[andrewas]

He crumpled it into a ball.

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by andrewas: He crumpled it into a ball.

Duh.

[Xen]

What change did the student make to ensure the plane would fly straight?

Simple. Either
Choice or Causality

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by andrewas: He crumpled it into a ball.

Good answer, andrewas. That is exactly what he did. I have to admit that I would have gotten the whipping because I wouldn't have thought to do that. But it was that action that led me to start exploring the concept of "lateral thinking" and coming up with innovative solutions. I'm still not as proficient with it as I would like to be..my thinking tends to be very linear in nature...but it is something I'm working on.

Anyway, now it's your turn to give us a problem that requires some lateral thinking to solve.

[ 05-09-2004, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: Cerek the Barbaric ]

[Xen]

Can anybody post new problem, or only he who finds the solution to the problem?

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Xen: Can anybody post new problem, or only he who finds the solution to the problem?

In all fairness, the person that gets the answer right should get to post the next problem...but I think it's OK for somebody else to post one if they have one ready. Let's just say that no new problems can be posted until the current one is solved. Does that sound fair enough?

[Vaskez]

Hmmm I wouldn't have thought to crumple it into a ball because the criterion was to make a paper AEROPLANE and a ball is not a plane. So I'm not sure if that was ingenious lateral thinking or just cheating [img]tongue.gif[/img] I can do the latter

[johnny]

Well, since the plane came behind him the second time, i thought he'd turn 90 degrees, and throw the plane in that direction. That way there would have been a chance the plane made it to the initial finishline.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Vaskez: Hmmm I wouldn't have thought to crumple it into a ball because the criterion was to make a paper AEROPLANE and a ball is not a plane. So I'm not sure if that was ingenious lateral thinking or just cheating [img]tongue.gif[/img] I can do the latter

The challenge was NOT to create an AEROPLANE that would fly a specific distance. The student had already made the airplane. Since he did it during the time he was supposed to by studying, the teacher could have punished him for it, but decided to issue a challenge instead. All the teacher said was "You have to get that plane past this line". He didn't say that it had to still be in the shape of a plane. Breaking it down even further, the challenge was to get that piece of paper past the line the teacher drew. And even the teacher had to give the student credit for coming up with such an innovative solution...he thought for SURE he was going to win the challenge, but the student managed to think of a way to get the plane past the line.

It was a solution that even James T. Kirk would have been proud of.