These three picture frames are from an experiment performed during class lecture. I lay on a bed of nails with a board and concrete block on top and me. Don, your lab assistant, smashes the concrete block with a 16 pound hammer.

The point of the physics demo is to help illustrate impulse and the importance of contact time (of course also to have some fun in a very technical subject). The students enjoy watching this demo.

Part of my teaching philosophy is to illustrate physics with real physical objects, not just equations. We, the physics department at SBCC, have invested a great deal of money and time developing real physical demos to help students learn the important physical concepts and understand their applications to science and engineering.