Algodoo

This reminded me of a touristic attraction here in Argentina. We had a huge granite rock balancing on a hill, until in ~1910 it fell and broke to pieces. After that they made a fake one and put it there like the original
There are photos of it, like this one

Does this scene have anything in particular, or is it really balanced? I couldn't find anything Thyme-related though I noticed a strange behaviour when dragging

Q: Is it really balanced?
A: Yes, the stones are really balanced.

I used a particular method for balancing the stones. Perhaps you, or somebody else, can figure out a way for balancing the stones and describe it below.

I did a search on YouTube for "rock balancing" videos and found that there are piles of them (pun intended). THIS is just one of the many videos. Some people take this art form very seriously, and even compete to see who can make the most elaborate, highest, and most beautiful stack of rocks. Some of those guys focus their concentration so acutely that it looks like they are stoned (yep, pun intended again).

Hmm, i have no idea how. It'd be nearly impossible if the rocks were simply auto-generated from a texture though

I noticed that the upmost rock of the second pile rotates slowly, shifting the center of mass and making the rock below it fall. Then the other pile also comes crashing down. weird behavior on 1200 Hz...

If the top rock is #1 and the bottom rock is #6 then I start by balancing #1 on #2, then I glue #1 and #2 together and balance on #3. I proceed in like manner until I get to #6 at which time I loosen everything. On my computer they stay stacked for about a minute. There may be a more accurate way of stacking whereby they stay stacked indefinitely (like the stacked water scenes).

One thing that I found to be helpful when balancing objects in Algodoo is to enable: app.drawbodycenters = true That will produce a green dot in the center of each object. I'm not sure if the dot is the object's exact center of mass or if it's the object's centroid, but it does seem to help in any case. I also found that setting every object's restitution to zero helps because it reduces the object's tendency to bounce around when setting them on top of other objects. I don't know if that would be considered "cheating".

Try these ideas!

Thanks for the ideas. I found that showing forces and unchecking all except gravity helps. If multiple rocks are glued together, then the gravity force for the combination is displayed. Rocks, or groups of rocks, will balance when the gravity vector passes between the points of support.

hey guys !!! maybe u never try it but if u play the scene and wait without no simulation change the rock will slowly move and tip over. s_noonan u need develop this scene. thx

Regarding "rock will slowly move and tip over", Xray and The Linkage knew about that. Feel free to balance the rocks so they stay balanced indefinitely and post the scene as a response.

aliens did this in someones house once

illegaloperation -- Assuming that aliens have superior intelligence, why would they waste their time balancing rocks in some Earthling's house? Wouldn't you think that they would have more important things to do such as enslaving humans, or taking over control of the Universe?