Wednesday 14 March 2012

Game & Science: Angry Birds in Space!!!


Angry Bird Space
Image from Angry Birds

In my earlier entry, News & Science: Science News Digest (22nd Feb), I have already announced the soon-to-be released Angry Bird Space game, in today's entry, we will look at the gameplay from a physics point of view.

First, the gameplay on Galaxy Note.


Some of you might be scratching your head as to how come the bird will travel with such trajectory? Well, first, let the NASA astronaut teach you.





WARNING!!! VERY TECHNICAL STUFF BELOW!!!

Still having trouble understanding? Here's the experiment by Dot Science trying to find out how the gravitational forces on both moons will act on the birds.
If you like to read a little about physics, here's the formula we all should remember back in those secondary school days -- the gravitational forces acted upon the bird by the two moons:

(m1 and m2 are the mass of the moons, r is the distance from the centre of one moon to another, vector r is the constantly changing distance between the bird and the moons, G is the gravitational constant  =6.674×10−11 N m2 kg−2. )
Image from Wikipedia

If this one doesn't make sense to you, then this one below for kinetic and gravitational potential energy won't make sense either,

Basically, at any time, the total of kinetic and potential energy should add up to 0.

K is the kinetic energy and Ug is the gravitational potential energy of the bird.

Image from gamerant.

If this is too technical and you don't feel like reading any of that, here's the conclusion from the experiment:

"Clearly, I need more data."

That means, it is so far inconclusive as to how the birds can fly like that because it doesn't seem to match the calculation in Physics, but looks like we will soon know it, when there are more videos of gameplay on YouTube.

For now, let's just wait. 22nd March is on its way!!!


Vocabulary:
gameplay -- (n) [U] is the specific way in which players interact with a game,[1][2] and in particular with video games.
trajectory --  [C] specialized the curved path that an object follows after it has been thrown or shot into the air
inconclusive  -- (adj) not giving or having a result or decision


Resources:
News & Science: Science News Digest (22nd Feb) @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2012/02/news-science-science-news-digest-22nd.html

[GALAXY Note] Exclusive Level - Angry Birds Space @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=10eHOnufWkA

Angry Birds Space: NASA announcement @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxI1L1RiSJQ

Angry Birds in Space @ Dot Science
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/angry-birds-in-space/

Newton's law of universal gravitation @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_force#Gravitational_field

Angry Bird Space Official Website
http://space.angrybirds.com/announcement/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/trajectory?q=trajectory+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/inconclusive?q=inconclusive