CONCEPT QUESTIONS IN ENGINEERING:

THE BEGINNINGS OF A SHARED COLLECTION

Peter Goodhew

University of Liverpool

ABSTRACT

Concept questions (CQs) have been pioneered by Eric Mazur and others, and popularised by
the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). CQs require that the student thinks about and applies
engineering principles and ideally require the recall of few, if any, facts or data. At present they
are available (or at least published) in just a few areas of engineering. A review of the available
literature reveals only a dozen or so examples of the systematic use of concept questions. This
session will be dedicated to sharing what is currently available and stimulating the writing of
further CQs in currently under-populated areas of engineering.

KEYWORDS

Concept questions; assessment; engineering principles

INTRODUCTION TO CONCEPT QUESTIONS

Concept questions are questions for students which seek to explore their understanding rather
than their recall or knowledge. In higher education hey have been developed by teachers in
various fields, but principally in physical sciences, over the twenty years since about 1991.
Concept questions could be used for either formative or summative assessment, but one of the
huge advantages they offer is the potential for the teacher to discover the misconceptions held
by his or her students in time to do something about this deficit. Consequently there are more
reports of concept questions being used in class, or in pre-course surveys, than in summative
examinations. [e.g. Mazur (1997), Krause, Kelly, Triplett, Eller, & Baker, 2010].

It is probably helpful to illustrate the power of concept questions by using an example from the
engineering education domain, rather than from a technical domain such as mechanics or
thermodynamics. Let us consider possible questions about assessment:

1. List ten ways in which a taught course might be assessed;

2. Describe, giving advantages and disadvantages for each, three ways in which a course
might be assessed;
3. Would you devise the summative assessment for a course before or after assembling
the content to be taught? Explain your answer.

Question 1 simply tests recall of facts (whether these were included in a lecture or in a source
found by the student). Question 2 tests recall of facts, but also requires a little more detail about
each. This detail might arise from understanding but equally might demonstrate better recall. (I

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
have seen a recent example of two complete pages of detail being recalled by a student in a
closed examination – demonstrating no understanding whatsoever.) Question 3 is a concept
question. In order to answer it the student would need to understand not only the meaning of
the phrase “summative assessment” but also its purpose and its relationship to the “taught”
material and the intended learning outcomes of the course. Unless the students had previously
been presented with the identical question, recall of facts (or a model answer) is of very little use
in answering it.

Concept questions were originally used by Mazur as a focus for student engagement in large
classes and were associated with responses via a “clicker” (personal response system).
However this is merely one way in which such questions can be deployed. Many education
researchers have also used sets of concept questions as a research tool with which to
investigate the extent of, and reasons for, student misconceptions about key concepts in
engineering and physical science.[e.g. ]

Many good concept questions offer “distractor” answers which reflect common misconceptions,
but the questions do not necessarily have to be multiple choice. Some equally good questions
ask for open-ended responses in free text. Mazur [] recommends marking these on a very
coarse scale, analogous to that used when refereeing a paper (e.g. 3 for “accept unchanged”, 2
for “minor corrections needed”, 1 for “major re-write needed” and 0 for “reject”. The analogous
rubric for a concept question is clear.) Such marking does not require a long time per answer.

In this paper I want to outline the small number of published sets of concept questions which are
available in the engineering domain, and encourage CDIO members to contribute to extending
this resource.

EXISTING SETS OF QUESTIONS

The best known set of concept questions is probably the Force Concept Inventory (FCI)
published by Hestenes and accessible by ...... Gray and a team of co-workers have assembled
a Dynamics Concept Inventory of 29 questions [], but in order to forestall student discovery and
the sharing of answers, the inventory is only accessible to faculty on application to the team.
Mazur published several sets of questions with his book “Peer Instruction” in 1997 and these
cover a range of topics drawn from undergraduate physics. Many of these are applicable to
engineering students.

Good concept questions are quite time-consuming (and intellectually challenging) to produce,
so for obvious reasons it is sensible not to release them to students but to use them only in
controlled class situations. Mazur for one, and maybe others, have also regularly used concept
questions in formal summative examinations [].

In order to give a flavour of the questions which have already been written, I have appended a
small selection. To reduce the risk of letting good question sets out of the bag I have not
credited each individual question with its provenance, except to say that the source of every
question has been cited in this paper.

A CDIO CONCEPT QUESTION RESOURCE

I propose that we establish a shared CDIO bank of concept questions. This would include (with
permission from the authors) existing sets of questions but would be considerably enhanced by
the addition of questions written by faculty members of CDIO member institutions. As a start I

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
propose that everyone at this conference should devise a single question in their own domain of
specialisation.

As a second step I am willing to collect and coordinate this question bank, either or both via
Mendeley [www.mendeley.com] and/or Dropbox [www.dropbox.com]. In both cases I am happy
to give access to any CDIO Faculty member or other bona fide engineering academic who
wishes to contact me. Mendeley is an excellent package for sharing pdf resources but has a
number of sharers limited by the rate of subscription so cannot be completely open to all those
who request access. I will give first preference to CDIO faculty.

At the conference in Copenhagen I will be asking all delegates to submit concept questions for
inclusion in this resource.

SOME EXAMPLES OF CONCEPT QUESTIONS

1. Draw the free body diagram for a coin just after it has been tossed. [Alternatively: What
is the force on a coin just after it has been tossed?] Are the forces on the coin greater
on the way up or the way down? Ignore air friction.

2. H2O is heated in a frictionless piston-and cylinder arrangement, where the piston mass
and the atmospheric pressure above it are constant. The pressure of the H2O will: (a)
increase (b) remain constant (c) decrease (d) need more information.

3. About a teaspoon of water-saturated salt sits on the bottom of a beaker. If the solution is
allowed to sit for 24 hours and have some of the water evaporate, which curve
represents the change in concentration of the salt in the solution from time t1 to t2?
(Circle a or b or c) PLEASE EXPLAIN. [Diagrams in concept questions rarely need to be
more sophisticated than this.]

4. A large truck collides head-on with a small car. During the collision:
a) The truck exerts a greater amount of force on the car than the car exerts on the
truck;
b) The car exerts a greater amount of force on the truck than the truck exerts on the
car;

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 c) Neither exerts a force on the other, the car gets smashed simply because it gets in
the way of the truck;
d) The truck exerts a force on the car but the car does not exert a force on the truck;
e) The truck exerts the same amount of force on the car as the car exerts on the truck.

5. A system consisting of a quantity of ideal gas is in equilibrium state “A”. It is slowly

heated and as it expands its pressure varies. It ends up in equilibrium state “B”. Now
suppose that the same quantity of ideal gas again starts in state “A” but undergoes a
different thermodynamic process (i.e. follows a different path on a P-V diagram) only to
end up again in the same state “B” as before. Consider the net work done by the system
and the net heat absorbed by the system during these two different processes. Which of
these statements is true?
a) The work done may be different in the two processes but the heat absorbed must be
the same;
b) The work done must be the same in the two processes, but the heat absorbed may
be different;
c) The work done may be different in the two processes, and the heat absorbed may be
different in the two processes;
d) Both the work done and the heat absorbed must be the same in the two processes,
but are not equal to zero;
e) Both the work done and the heat absorbed by the system must be equal to zero in
both processes.
[Each of the five answers was selected by some students.]

6. If atomic bonding in metal A is weaker than metal B, then metal A has:

a) lower melting point
b) lower brittleness
c) lower electrical conductivity
d) lower thermal expansion coefficient
e) lower density

7. If you unwrap a new piece of modeling clay that is a rectangular solid 4cm x 4cm x
16cm, which one of the following would most increase its surface area?
a) Press down on a long side (making it, e.g. about 16 x 8 x 2 cm3)
b) Form it into a cube, about 6.5 cm per side.
c) Form it into a cylinder, keeping the length about 16cm.
d) Make a sphere.

8. What do these three processes have in common?

Rust forming on iron nail
Water evaporating from a dish
A piece of candy dissolving in your mouth
a) The rate of change depends on the mass of the substance.
b) All three processes involve a change in phase.
c) All three processes are chemical reactions.
d) All three processes occur at the surface of the substance.
e) All three processes depend on the solubility of the substance. [Light et al]

9. You are in an elevator travelling upwards at constant velocity. Suddenly you drop your
keys: It so happens that when they strike the floor they are at the same height above
ground level as when they left your hand. The keys fall dead on the floor without

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 bouncing. Make a single graph showing qualitatively the height above ground of both
the keys and the elevator as a function of time, starting before the keys are released
until after they strike the floor.

REFERENCES

Gray, Gary L, Evans, D, Cornwell, P J , Self, B and Costanzo, F “Dynamics Concept Inventory
Web Site” www.esm.psu.edu/dci/

Gray, Gary L, Evans, D, Cornwell, P J , Self, B and Costanzo, F (2005) Proc 2005 Society for
Engineering Education Annual Conference, Portland, OR

Hestenes, David, M. Wells, and G. Swackhamer, “Force Concept Inventory,” The Physics
Teacher, Vol. 30, No. 3, 1992, pp. 141-151.

Krause, S, Decker, J C & Griffin, R; (2003) Using a materials concept inventory to assess
conceptual gain in introductory materials engineering courses, 33rd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in
Education Conference, T3D-7

Mazur, Eric; Peer Instruction: A User’s Manual, Prentice Hall 1997

Meltzer, David E “Investigation of students’ reasoning regarding heat, work, and the first law of
thermodynamics in an introductory calculus-based general physics course”, Am J Phys 72 (11)
2004, 1432-1446

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Peter Goodhew is Emeritus Professor in the School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, UK.
He is one of the Directors of CDIO and the joint Leader of the UK & Ireland region. He is
interested in many aspects of engineering education and has recently published a short book on
the subject: “Teaching Engineering”, downloadable from
http://www.materials.ac.uk/resources/Teaching-Engineering.pdf

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR

Professor Peter Goodhew

School of Engineering
University of Liverpool
Liverpool L69 3GH
goodhew@liv.ac.uk

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
Workshop ideas and outcomes:
Topics worthy of a CQ:

Vector fields
Domain transformation from time to frequency
Transfer between kinetic and potential energy (in various fields)
Feedback loops
Networks for flow
Energy vs power
Trigonometric functions
Venturi effect
Variables and objects (in programming)
Real vs reactive power
Is Google translation good or bad?
Logic
Non-linearity
Stability
Newton’s second law in fluids
Linear algebra / systems
Probability / inexact solutions
Estimation / approximation
Non-ideal response (in circuits and elsewhere)
Cantilever beam
Kirchoff’s Law

Sharing ideas:

Questions need to be screened for correctness and second-order effects

Facebook sends a reminder of new postings
Post on multiple sites
A wiki on the CDIO site would be the simplest way of attracting comments and
improvements to the questions
Dropbox folder can be public

Email list:

Moshe Tshuva moshet@afeka.ac.il

akr@byg.dtu.dk
jsp@imm.dtu.dk
sh@imm.dtu.dk
ck@elektro.dtu.dk
Mikko Vanhatalo mikko.vanhatalo@tut.fi
Ramon Bragos ramon.bragos@upc.edu
Eduard Alarcon eduard.alarcon@upc.edu
Johan Bankel johan.bankel@chalmers.se
Peeter Kukk peeter.kukk@ksk.edu.ee
Steven Miner miner@usna.edu
Anna Friesel afr@ihk.dk

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
Robert Brennan rbrennan@ucalgary.ca
Michel Briand Michel.briand@telecom-bretagne.eu
Olli Kaikonnen Olli.kaikkonen@lamk.fi
Silja Kostia Silja.kostia@lamk.fi
Daniel Spooner Daniel.spooner@polymtl.ca
Göran Gustafsson gorang@chalmers.se
Tommy Josefsson tommy.josefsson@hlk.hj.se
Hans Peter Christensen hapech@sanilin.gl
Rick Sellens rick.sellens@queensu.ca

Concept Questions submitted during the conference (by Tuesday morning)

1. Draw the free body diagram for a coin just after it has been tossed. [Alternatively:
What is the force on a coin just after it has been tossed?] Are the forces on the coin
greater on the way up or the way down? Ignore air friction.

2. H2O is heated in a frictionless piston-and cylinder arrangement, where the piston

mass and the atmospheric pressure above it are constant. The pressure of the H2O
will: (a) increase (b) remain constant (c) decrease (d) need more information.

3. About a teaspoon of water-saturated salt sits on the bottom of a beaker. If the

solution is allowed to sit for 24 hours and have some of the water evaporate, which
curve represents the change in concentration of the salt in the solution from time t1
to t2? (Circle a or b or c) PLEASE EXPLAIN. [Diagrams in concept questions rarely
need to be more sophisticated than this.]

4. A large truck collides head-on with a small car. During the collision:
a) The truck exerts a greater amount of force on the car than the car exerts on the
truck;
b) The car exerts a greater amount of force on the truck than the truck exerts on the
car;
c) Neither exerts a force on the other, the car gets smashed simply because it gets
in the way of the truck;
d) The truck exerts a force on the car but the car does not exert a force on the truck;

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 e) The truck exerts the same amount of force on the car as the car exerts on the
truck.

5. A system consisting of a quantity of ideal gas is in equilibrium state “A”. It is slowly

heated and as it expands its pressure varies. It ends up in equilibrium state “B”.
Now suppose that the same quantity of ideal gas again starts in state “A” but
undergoes a different thermodynamic process (i.e. follows a different path on a P-V
diagram) only to end up again in the same state “B” as before. Consider the net work
done by the system and the net heat absorbed by the system during these two
different processes. Which of these statements is true?
a) The work done may be different in the two processes but the heat absorbed
must be the same;
b) The work done must be the same in the two processes, but the heat
absorbed may be different;
c) The work done may be different in the two processes, and the heat absorbed
may be different in the two processes;
d) Both the work done and the heat absorbed must be the same in the two
processes, but are not equal to zero;
e) Both the work done and the heat absorbed by the system must be equal to
zero in both processes.
[Each of the five answers was selected by some students.]

6. If atomic bonding in metal A is weaker than metal B, then metal A has:

a) lower melting point
b) lower brittleness
c) lower electrical conductivity
d) lower thermal expansion coefficient
e) lower density

7. If you unwrap a new piece of modeling clay that is a rectangular solid 4cm x 4cm x
16cm, which one of the following would most increase its surface area?
a) Press down on a long side (making it, e.g. about 16 x 8 x 2 cm3)
b) Form it into a cube, about 6.5 cm per side.
c) Form it into a cylinder, keeping the length about 16cm.
d) Make a sphere.

8. What do these three processes have in common?

Rust forming on iron nail
Water evaporating from a dish
A piece of candy dissolving in your mouth
a) The rate of change depends on the mass of the substance.
b) All three processes involve a change in phase.
c) All three processes are chemical reactions.
d) All three processes occur at the surface of the substance.
e) All three processes depend on the solubility of the substance. [Light et al]

9. You are in an elevator travelling upwards at constant velocity. Suddenly you drop
your keys: It so happens that when they strike the floor they are at the same height
above ground level as when they left your hand. The keys fall dead on the floor
without bouncing. Make a single graph showing qualitatively the height above

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 ground of both the keys and the elevator as a function of time, starting before the
keys are released until after they strike the floor.

10. Suggest 3 hypotheses to explain the observation that a bar of soap appears to give
less lather as it gets smaller.

11. You are sitting in your kitchen on a hot summer day. In order to cool yourself down
you open the door of the fridge. Is this a good idea? What happens to the
temperature in the room after, say, one hour?

12. You throw a ball at your friend, making it bounce once before she catches it. Draw
the force on the ball at five locations, including the moment it bounces. Use an arrow
whose direction shows the direction of the force and whose length gives an
indication of the magnitude of the force.

13. You are in a small boat in a small pond. You have a six-pack of beer with you. You
throw it into the water and it sinks (what a shame!). Does the water level in the pond
rise, fall or stay constant?

14. What is the chance that the next person you see will have more than the average
number of arms?

15. What is the chance that the next person you see will have more than the median
number of arms?

16. You want a cup of white coffee but have little time before you must leave. The coffee
is very hot and the milk is cool. To maximise the chance that your coffee is cool
enough to drink before you have to leave, should you add the milk immediately or
just before you drink it?

17. You fire a bullet parallel to the ground and drop one at the same time. Which hits
the ground first?

18. A truck-load of chickens is on a weigh-bridge. They suddenly all take flight. Does
the indicated weight of the truck change?

19. You suspend a book by a thin string. To the bottom of the book you attach a similar
thin string. You jerk the lower string – which string breaks first? In a second
experiment you pull slowly on the lower string – does the same string break?

20. The ice cube in your drink melts. Does the level of your drink rise, fall or remain
steady?

21. A river runs past your house. One year a hydro-electric power station is built a
kilometre upstream from you. What difference would you be able to detect in the
water flowing past your house? [cooler]

22. A ladder is upright against a vertical wall. Both the wall and the floor are perfectly
slippery (no friction between ladder and floor or wall). You pull the bottom of the
ladder away from the wall slightly and it starts to slip down. At some angle it loses

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 contact with the wall. What does this angle depend on? [dimensional analysis –
independent of mass, g or length, as long as g is non-zero]

23. During cooling from high temperature, small spheres solidify homogeneously in a
metallic melt which consists of A and B atoms. The composition Cx in the centre of
the spherical nuclei below is richer in atom B compared to the surface. Which of the
phase diagrams below is appropriate for this alloy?

24. Why can a wind turbine never extract all the energy from the wind?

25. Three materials are tested in tension, giving the stress-strain curves

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 16a. Which material is most ductile? (C)
16b. Which material is the toughest? (B)

26. Topic: Power considerations in amplifiers

Degree: electronic engineering, but basic enough to be used in any elementary
electronics course of any engineering
Justification: Students usually pay attention to the characteristics about signal
processing in amplifiers (bandwidth, gain, …) but often forget the limits set by power
supply
Question: An amplifier provides a sinusoidal output voltage to a 8 Ω load (e.g. a
loudspeaker). If it is powered by a unipolar power supply of 5 V, which is the maximum
power that can be transferred to the load?
Answer: The maximum voltage excursion at the amplifier output is 5 V peak to peak
(considering an ideal amplifier without dropout). Then the rms output voltage is
2.5/sqrt(2)=1.77V and the power over the load is 1,77^2/8=390 mWrms
Advanced answer: If a switched structure (Class D) using a H-bridge is employed, the
maximum voltage excursion at the amplifier output is 10 V peak to peak (5V) and the
output power is then 1,56 mWrms

Alternative question: if we double the supply voltage of an amplifier (i.e. from 5V to 10

V), the maximum output power delivered to a resistive load:
a) remains the same
b) is doubled
c) is 4 times higher (correct answer)
d) is sqrt(2) times higher

27. Applicable to aerodynamics, flight mechanics,

Consider a bicyclist riding a flat road, with no wind. The rider's fuel burn rate (cal/HR)
is reasonably assumed proportional to power required, and air drag is the sole
resisting force. Is the fuel burned over a fixed distance:

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 1- invariant with velocity?
2- proportional to velocity?
3- proportional to velocity squared?
4- proportional to velocity cubed?

Correct answer is 3.
The drag is proportional to V^2. The power required i/ drag times velocity, and
hence proportional to V^3. So burn per unit time is proportional to V^3. The fuel
burned per distance is the burn rate divided by velocity. Hence the fuel consumption
over a fixed distance is proportional to V^2, and directly proportional to the drag.

28. (used as example by Mazur) Metals expand when heated. If a sheet of metal
containing a circular hole is heated will the diameter of the hole increase, decrease
or remain the same?

29. (Jim McNeely question – needs diagrams) x and y sensors are 90 degrees apart
giving Vout proportional to distance from shaft. Shaft is bent slightly, and rotating.
Output voltages are shown below (diagram: sine curves). In what direction is the
shaft rotating? Clockwise viewed from R, clockwise viewed from L, or can’t tell.

30. If a black box is connected by a wire to a weight in a gravity field, and the weight is
observed to rise, the energy in the black box rises, falls, stays the same, can’t tell?

31. If a vertical load is applied to a beam with the cross-section shown (T shaped), the
tip of the beam will deflect down, down and left, down and right, can’t tell?

32. If a plate made of anisotropic material is deflected by a load at the tip (diagram), then
deflection at A = deflection at B,
Deflection at a > deflection at B
Deflection at A < deflection at B?

33. When given the requirements for a new system, as the designer you should: take
them as given; question the supplier and perhaps redefine them; ignore them and
make a great product?

34. Define the distributed vorticity in this flow (diagram, V proportional to 1/r)

35. How much power is required to maintain the speed of a bicycle on level ground at
30km/hr?

36. What is the principle (or did he mean principal?) difference between the two bridges
shown? (diagram)

37. (and nine more like this)

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 38. You are driving a motorbike on a highway. Explain what will happen if you gently turn
handlebar to right (or to left). Try to figure out how the bike turns.

39. Chemical Engineering CQ: You are an engineer who is to design an insulation
system for a reactor and you have two types of insulating materials. They have heat
transfer coefficients where K1 > K2. How will you arrange the layers to obtain a
better insulation and why?

40. Chemical Engineering CQ: What is the basis of selecting the shell side and tube side
fluids of a shell and tube heat exchanger?

41. What does it mean to say that an equation is linear?

42. What does it mean to say that a system of linear equations has no solution?

43. Why can’t a material be (completely) stiff?

A: because if you hit a piece of such a material, a wave would travel through it faster
than the speed of light in vacuum, which would clearly violate the laws of physics, as we
know them

44. Two twins jump off a springboard next to each other. Will they fall faster if they hold
each other’s hands (turning them into one body with twice the mass)?
Of course not, which demonstrates that all objects accelerate at the same rate (air
resistance neglected)

45. A ship passes slowly across an aqueduct between two dams. How does the load on
the aqueduct change during this process? (The passage is so slow that there aren’t
any waves.)
A: it doesn’t change at all since it is only a function of the water level, which is obviously
constant

46. A current flows in the overhead power line of an electrical railway (or tram). Where
does it go after that?

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 A. A closed circuit is necessary in order to get a current. The current continues through
the locomotive engine and returns to the power station via the wheels and the rails

47. Why do small animals have to eat so much more relative to their weight than large
animals have to eat?
A: in order to maintain their temperature. Small animals have a larger proportion of their
cells close to the surface, which is the same thing as saying that they have a larger
relative surface. If L is a characteristic length of the body, the surface area A is
proportional to L2 while the volume V is proportional to L3. A/V = 1/L, which becomes
larger the smaller L is

48. Is it worth it to bend down and pick up a penny from the street?
A: (example of a Fermi problem). Compare the price of the energy needed to lift your
body again after having kneeled down with the value of the coin

49. While you are driving you have a helium filled balloon in the middle of your car. If
you accelerate, which way does the balloon go relative to the car? Backwards,
forward or does it stay where it is?
A: it goes forward. (A positive) acceleration is like if the car was hanging with the front
pointing up, which makes the air thicker and forces the balloon to float “upwards”.

50. How does the force on a bicycle wheel propagate from the road through the tyre and
up through the rim and the spokes to the hub?
A: don’t know, but a free body diagram ought to answer the question

51. Does a bathtub vortex rotate in different directions in the northern and southern
hemispheres?
A: no, it can go either way in both hemispheres. There IS an effect that works in different
directions, but that is extremely weak compared to other effects and cannot be
observed in a bathtub. There the rotation is due to VORTEX STRETCHING, and the
vortex can easily be stopped and started in the opposite direction by hand.

52. Why does a longer train generally travel slower than a shorter train with the same
mass and traction power?
A: the maximum speed is determined by curves and gradients along the line, and in a
long train a part of it is more often at a slow section, keeping the speed of the whole train
down

53. Why is there a maximum height that a tree can reach?

A: The mechanical stress is determined by the ratio mass/cross section area, which
increases with the height (is it keeps its proportions)

54. Draw a free body diagram of the International Space Station (ISS) in its orbit around
the earth
A: the station is in free fall and the only force on it is directed towards the centre of the
earth

55. A cylinder of water in a body of water has weight = height X pressure at area of
bottom (W = ρAgh). A cone of water with the same bottom area and height should
surely therefore weigh the same? Why not? [diagram needed]

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 56. Is it true that you are most likely to be in the busiest lane of a motorway? Is so, why?
If not, why not?

57. Fair share

Two identical beakers, one half‐full of whiskey, one half‐full of water. Scoop out some
whiskey out of beaker 1, and pour it into the water beaker (2). Than scoop the same
volume of mixture out of beaker 2, and pour it back into beaker 1. Do you have more
(less, or same) amount of whiskey in the water than you have water in the whiskey.
(Works equally well with rum.)
John Dalton did something similar to compare atomic weight

58. You have ten bags of identical coins, plus a very good scale. The Leprechauns have
switched a bag of yours with a bag of theirs: their coins being slightly different in
weight. Can you, with a single weighing, determine which bag is the Leprechaun’s?

59. Are all girls equal (equal to … ? Just ‘equal’)

“Far too many boys and not enough girls in this country! How to reduce the births of
boys and foster that of women so as to bring the proportions back into balance?”
“Easy: Set the law so that families can procreate at will as long as ‘It’s a girl!’, and
have to stop the first time that ‘It’s a boy!’ You’ll have families with only one boy,
some with one boy and one girl, ... , some with one boy and four girls, etc. But never
a family with more than one boy. So you’re bound, overall, to have more girls than
boys that way.”
Right or wrong? Why?

60. Can trains turn at all?

 “Daddyyy!
 Yessssss?
 How can the trains turn?
 Well they just follow the track, dearest little one.
 But daddyyy!! On a train, both wheels are linked together with a stiff rod of steel. In
a turn, the outer arc is bound to be longer than the inner arc. One of the two wheels
should skid or the rod should twist. I saw a train turn the other day, and none of the
two happened: no skid and no twist … So Daddyyy,how
come the trains can turn?
 …What school do you go to?…”
How can the trains turn, no skid, no twist?

61. Row, row, row your boat

You paddle away in your canoe, with a half‐bottle of champagne tied to the boat and
floating in the river to be nice and cool. Oh rats! The knot isn’t well made, and the
bottle floats away in the current. You realize this is so only 60 min later. You turn
around, and paddle towards the bottle, applying the same force on the paddle as you
always do. (Very constant individual.)
Will it take you more time, less time, or the same amount of time to paddle towards
the bottle with the current, than the time you paddled away from the bottle against
the current?

62. You and Zeus

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
 Zeus will let you down the mountain only if you can guess which of three apparently
identical spheres, all of equal mass, is hollow and empty. You know one is solid
homogeneous material, one is hollow and filled with liquid, and one is hollow and
empty. You cannot touch, knock, handle the spheres, only Zeus can approach them.
What can you ask Zeus to do with the spheres, to help you guess which is hollow
and empty?
How will you determine which is hollow and empty?

63. You can fly!

Windy, and not windy. Model planes are flown from post A to B, and back. Constant
wind – if some – from B to A. Will the planes take more, less, or the same time to do
the round trip with or without wind?

64. ...But can you float?

A boat filled with iron scrap is in the locks. Doors of the locks are closed tight
(sealed), and pumps inactive. For some reason the (infamous) captain decides to
dump all the iron scrap in the locks. Will the level of water go up, down, or stay the
same with respect to the walls of the locks? [this is the same as the earlier question
13 about the six-pack]

65. Red chair

On the ski slope, there is a little flat ¾ of the way up, where you like to stop for the
sight. Alongside is the chair lift, with all blue chairs but one, which is red. Playful
expectation, you stop on your little flat until the red chair comes by. But, but... Your
statistics show you see the red chair going up much more often than it goes down.
How can this be?

66. Windows
Two friends haven’t seen one another for a long, very long, time.
 I have three kids now, you know.
 No kidding. How old are they?
 Well the product of their age is 36. The sum of their age is... is... Ah! Is equal to
the number of
windows in the wall over there.
(Work, think, compute,...)
 This cannot be solved!
 What? Let me see... Oh! You are right. It cannot. Well the last one has blue eyes.
 Why did you not say so in the first place. If the last one has blue eyes, then their
ages have to be...
How old are the kids, and how could he find out?

67. Ferry
A ferry boat runs along a cable because the cross current is too strong. The motor
breaks down. What can you do to go on ferrying along without a motor, and not
touching or pulling on the cable?

68. So hot
So hot a day. Quick! Shut the windows and open the freezer. That should cool the
room down. [same as question 11] True or false, and why?

Proceedings of 7th International CDIO Conference 2011, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen