You can do a lot with a drone (a mini-helicopter). But how about cooking Thanksgiving dinner with one? And we don’t mean carrying dinner with it: we mean using that chopper to chop dinner. In this crazy video shared by our friend Michael B., somebody uses those whirling blades to peel potatoes, then peel and chop carrots. Then the drone hauls the turkey outside and lowers it into boiling oil, hovering for 25 minutes while the bird cooks. Finally the cook sticks egg beaters onto the drone, and uses it to whip potatoes, heavy cream, pumpkin pie mix and gravy all at once. It makes a huge mess, but dinner is served!
Wee ones: How many bowls can you see under the drone?
Little kids: If the drone finishes mixing the top left bowl, then the bottom right bowl, then the bottom left bowl, which bowl is last to finish? Bonus: If it peels 5 potatoes and 1 more carrot than that, how many veggies does it peel in total?
Big kids: If the turkey (or quail?) starts cooking at 12:45 pm and takes 25 minutes, when does it finish? Bonus: If each cook with a drone can make dinner for 8 people, how many drones and cooks are needed to make enough dinner for 30?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 bowls.
Little kids: The top right bowl. Bonus: 11 veggies, since it peeled 5 potatoes and 6 carrots.
Big kids: At 1:10 pm. Bonus: 4 cooks and 4 drones, since 3 of each can make dinner for only 24 people total.
Laura Bilodeau Overdeck is founder and president of Bedtime Math Foundation. Her goal is to make math as playful for kids as it was for her when she was a child. Her mom had Laura baking before she could walk, and her dad had her using power tools at a very unsafe age, measuring lengths, widths and angles in the process. Armed with this early love of numbers, Laura went on to get a BA in astrophysics from Princeton University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business; she continues to star-gaze today. Laura’s other interests include her three lively children, chocolate, extreme vehicles, and Lego Mindstorms.