Teach Fzx Tuesday - Discovering Torque Failure

I tried something new this year.  Instead of giving the definition of torque and the second condition, they discovered the basic relationship by balancing weights on a meter stick.  It worked.  Kind of.  But the new way sucked in comparison to the way I've done things in years past.  I wanted them to experiment and play with numbers and find the balancing torques relationship but it took way too long and they didn't really understand the relationship when it was done.

I prefer the activity where they used the same balancing meter stick and summed the torques about several points just to prove that the net torque about any point is zero - the second condition for equilibrium.  That's a good one.

Better to try something new and fail than never to try at all.  That's how I learn.  I fail often.