Back in the glory days of my youth (I’m not so young anymore, you know), I, shall we say, obtained control of the Society of Physics Students at St. Olaf. I declared my victory by announcing the Year of Newton, in which all SPS events had to be based on Newtonian mechanics. Tom, my roommate, along with a bunch of other physics students decided this warranted a contest of who could master Newton best. The challenge? Build a catapult to launch various fruits and vegtables as far as possible. We had a good time.

And so, it warms my heart to see that Purdue’s chapter of SPS is up to similar shenanigans. The students there have built a car. . . out of their old and fading couch in the Physics Lounge. Watch it in action, and check out the /. post where I discovered it.