Dear Jim and All,
Yesterday I gave a metrication talk to the local Ladies Probus club, and for
this I developed the idea of talking with me, for demonstration purposes, a
square metre.
Accordingly, I constructed a square metre from four metre lengths of 10 mm
fibreglass rod that I joined at the corners by garden hose elbow fittings*.
Once I had this square metre in my hand I placed it on the floor and thought
about how I could encourage a dozen or two elderly business and professional
ladies to squeeze together into my square metre � you could think of it as a
metric moshe pit!
In the end I didn't have the courage to try the experiment with the old
ladies, but it occurred to me that it might be a good competitive sport for
younger folk. Simply place your (robust) square metre on the floor and
challenge groups to see if they can break the record for the number of
people who can stand on a square metre.
***
Having done the above I then made three more square metres. I can now
quickly construct a cubic metre at one of my metric talks and the whole
thing packs flat in the back seat of my 1975 VW Beetle.
* I got the fibreglass rod from my brother-in-law who supplies electric
fencing materials to the rural community, and I bought the garden hose
elbows (for 35 cents each) from the local hardware store. The only
construction required was to ream out the insides of the plastic elbows to
10�mm and then to force fit everything together.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
CAMS - Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist
- United States Metric Association
ASM - Accredited Speaking Member
- National Speakers Association of Australia
Member, International Federation for Professional Speakers
--
on 2002/01/28 07.41, Gene Mechtly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Adrian Jadic wrote:
>
>> ... have a chart ... with masses from 60 kg to 100 kg ...
>> and heights from 1.50 m to 2 m...
>> You could explain how BMI is calculated and then just have them read
>> from the chart.
>
> Yes! and be sure to have a bathroom scale calibrated in kg, and a scale in
> m (or cm) on the wall for on site direct measurements of mass and height.
> Exclude from sight all charts and factors for ip to SI conversions.
> I'm confident that Jim Frysinger will do all of this without our
> suggestions, but the ideas might be useful for others who plan to run
> "language" fairs. SI is indeed *the* global *language of measurement*.
