Daily Idea #309: Laws of Motion

Ever wonder how a magician pulls a tablecloth off of a completely set table without moving the place settings? Well, for today’s daily idea we are going to try to do this but on a much smaller scale. All you need is a cup (if you are using a plastic cup put a little bit of water in the bottom to keep it steady), a small piece of cardboard from a box (it should be big enough to completely cover the mouth of the glass), and a stack of coins.

Place your cup on a flat surface. Next, position the cardboard over the mouth of the cup. Then start with setting one coin on top of the cardboard. Flick the cardboard off of the glass and see if you can get the coin to fall into the glass underneath. When you are able to get the coin in the glass, add a coin to your stack. Keep adding a coin to see how many coins you can pile up on top of each other and get into the glass.