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OcktoByte

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  1. OcktoByte

    PaVG #2: Minecraft

    By OcktoByte,

    Minecraft is one of the most well-known video games of this age. While not as popular as it once was, the game still updates and provides new content to players. The developers provide frequent "Snapshot" updates, and while not official releases, allow players to test new features before they are fully launched.
    Others have discussed before how much weight your player character can hold. However, the most recent snapshots of the game have added a new item called a Shulker Box. These items have 27 item slots, and allow a character to hold items within them and transport them in their inventory. Before, there was no way to transport items within containers. However, this effectively increases a player's inventory space. Previously, a player had 36 inventory slots, with a maximum of 64 items per slot for certain items. I wanted to find out, with this new item, how much force can one character hold?

    I figured that gold would be one of the heaviest items in the game, so I decided to fill 36 Shulker Boxes with 27 stacks of Gold Blocks. Each block in Minecraft is 1 cubic meter, so each chest contains 64 cubic meters * 27 slots per Box * 36 Inventory slots. This equates to 62,208 cubic meters of gold. Assuming this is pure gold, and disregarding the mass of ourselves and the Shulker Boxes, we can determine how much mass you can carry. The density of gold is equal to 19.32 grams per cubic centimeter, so each Minecraft block has a density of 19,320 kilograms per cubic meter. Multiplying this by our maximum amount of Gold Blocks that we can carry, we get 62,208 cubic meters * 19,320 kilograms per cubic meter, we get 1,201,858,560 kilograms.
    I determined experimentally the acceleration of a player by building a 10 meter tall tower and walking off. Recording time, I calculated a constant acceleration of 25.8 meters per second squared. Plugging this and our mass into Net Force = Mass * Acceleration, we can determine that 1,201,858,560 kg * 25.8 m/s2 = 31,007,950,848 Newtons of Force acting on your player character with no ill effects. A cursory Google search shows that only 3,300 Newtons has a 25% chance of breaking bone, and a Jet Engine can only produce around 44,000 Newtons.
    This is the type of reality that could only be created in video games. I suspect that this is part of the reason people enjoy games so much. Video games don't have to be bound by natural laws, and thus have more creative freedom.
    Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment with any suggestions for future posts, criticisms for this post, or feedback in general. See you next time!
  2. OcktoByte
    Ever since I heard about this blogging assignment, this was the first idea to come to mind. I used to play the game Super Mario Sunshine frequently in my childhood. The game stars Mario in a tropical setting, using a water-fueled jetpack to hover over large gaps for a few seconds. Using this jetpack, he can hover over characters and spray water on them to clean them off. Sounds harmless enough, but I wanted to see just how powerful this water pack could be.
    Many have assumed that Mario weighs somewhere around 165 pounds, so I will be using this for my calculations. Converting this to kilograms, we get 74.8427 kg. In order to calculate the force needed to hold Mario in place in the air, we need the force exerted by gravity on Mario. Using the equation Force = Mass * Acceleration, we can plug in the numbers 74.8427 kg for mass, and 9.81 m/s2 for acceleration due to gravity. This gives us a force of 734.206887 Newtons of force.
    In order to compare this device to something realistic, we need to determine its pressure. One way of doing this would be to find its PSI, or Pound-force per Square Inch. Since we have an answer in newtons, we can convert this to PSI using a different value for pressure, Newtons per Square Meter. This requires us to find the area of the water stream. Assuming that the stream of water is perfectly circular, and that its diameter is equal to the diameter of the nozzle at its widest point, all we need is the area of the nozzle. To do this, I can measure based on an actual model taken directly from the game's files.

    Doing this, I compared the backpack to Mario's official height of 5'1", and scaled it accordingly. Then, I measured the nozzle's diameter, and got a measurement of 30 centimeters. Using the equation Area = Pi * Radius2, substituting in .15 m for radius, we get an area of .070686 m2.
    The pressure unit is Newtons per Meter Squared, so dividing 734.206887 N by .070686 m2 will give us a pressure we can convert to PSI. This gives us 10386.90269 N/m2. Converting this to PSI gives us...1.5 PSI. This seems pretty underwhelming. For comparison, some garden hoses are rated for maximum PSIs of 150. Did I do something wrong?
    That's about all the time I have for now. Let me know what you think, and if there are any ways I could improve or simplify my calculations! For now, I'll leave you a video of a real-life water jetpack. See you next time!
     
  3. OcktoByte

    About Me

    By OcktoByte,

    Hi! So, I'm a Physics-C student, I'll just be going by OcktoByte. I like working with computers, and playing games. Eventually, I'd like to go to college for Computer Science.
    I'm taking Physics because I enjoyed AP-Physics last year, and the other options didn't really appeal to me. I hope that I'll be able to learn and become more comfortable with more difficult physics, and I'm excited to see how what we learn can be applied.
    So far, I feel most anxious about the difficulty of the class. I've heard it from others, and I knew going into it that the class would be tough, but I'm sure I'll get through it fine.
    Thanks for reading, and I'll be back in the following weeks to take a look at some video game physics!

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