Snail Race (November 2023 Challenge Question)

Well snails are notoriously hard to control, so a bit of luck would be needed in any case...but I would think that a well placed bit of spinach leaf placed in Pepe's path might slow him down, depending on how hungry he might be...

According to Guinness:

"The fastest moving species of land snail is probably the common garden snail (Helix aspera). On 20 February 1990, a garden snail named Verne completed a 31-cm (12.2-in) course at West Middle School in Plymouth, Michigan, USA, in 2 min 13 sec at 0.233 cm/sec (0.09 in/sec)."

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/76273-fastest-snail-land-snail#:~:text=The%20fastest%20moving%20species%20of,(0.09%20in%2Fsec).

For a 10 meter sprint, this comes out to about 71.53 minutes. You've gotta feel for the sports announcer for this race...

Make Pepe climb a slope at 26°. It can zig zag up and down as long as each section is at 26°.

Pepe thinks "climbing a slope has never slowed me down"; he doesn't realise he is going further.

“cr4.globalspec.com needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding.” I get this hang if I try to respond to the question, but I can add this here to your similar solution...

A circular track, 2 lanes, 320cm outer diameter, inner lane 35cm offset from outer.

Mac on inner track, 895 cm long

If I try to add more detail, Cloudflare locks me up. Not sure what it doesn’t like....

I found a confirm you are human check box that my IOS 12.5.6 device doesn’t know how to display and skips over so fast you can’t see it, so this is a new thing. Must be triggered by length of response. So it just sits there and hangs, with no escape except start over…

Must be a conflict between security protocol's....are you using a VPN? '''encryption?...also possibly a redirect browser blocker...need a handshake amongst allies...glitches always glitches

No blockers, Gmail > Safari, this in new behavior within last few weeks...

As I said, new IOS 15 now shows the box, are you human, that IOS 12 can’t display, or it skips over it so fast you can’t see it to respond....

Place Pepe backward on the start line. Snails need to follow a curve with a large radius to turn corners.

X

Place Pepe a meter and a half behind the starting line.

YES! POINTS!

There's a duck at the finish line waiting for Pepe.

A DUCK?

How about these ducks?

Better off to finish last.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkXyJk05XZU

Max deserves a win, not a tie! Hence the extra set-back for Pepe.

Make your race course with 2 parallel tracks, 320 cm outer diameter track, 35 cm wide. Set Mac on the inner track, PePe on the outer track. Set the finish line 5 cm from the start on the outer track, making a course length of 10 meters. The inner lane, 35cm smaller diameter, will be a course 892 cm long, providing a close race as their eye stalks will confirm at the dramatic conclusion.

A 5mm high barrier between the tracks will ensure one competitor will not interfere with the other (wink wink).

By just moving the new finish line back to where they started from should give Mac the needed confidence and the odds in their race.. All they need to do is turn around and head to the new finish line..

The challenge question demands from us not to shorten the race distance, but we are free to set its length to x, where x > 10m. Then Mac can start ahead of Pepe at point y (0 < y < x).

Using school math, the ratio of the velocities of the snails is vp/vm = 10/9 (derived from the initial race), which in the new race equals to x/(x-y). Some more school math and we see that x = 10y.

So Mac will win if in an 11m-long race he (or she? or both?) starts more than 1.1m ahead of Pepe.

If the requirement is that even x-y (Mac's running, ehm... snailing distance) cannot be shortened to less than 10m, then - again school math - the race length needs to be more than 100/9 = 11.111...m. If we pick, say 12m, then then Mac will have to start between 1.2 and 2m ahead of Pepe.

YES! ALSO POINTS!

You could add a loop 'D' loop in Pepe's track... 18" diameter should do it..

Place a few grains of salt at 9.9 meters from the finish line on Pepe's track.

This will stop him cold.It will actually kill him,but Mac will win.

Snails can't look backward,so Mac will never know.

If you are going to rig a race,rules don't matter.

You can place an awning over Mac's track and moisten it with some water, then hit Pepe's track with a hair dryer to dry it out, and leave it exposed to the Sun....the temperature difference and moisture level should be enough to tip the scales in Mac's favor considerably...

Mac Daddy

Mac motivational film...