Silly / Absurd

#85 · Javelin at the Tiny Olympics

Set up an athletics track on your desk, invite your smallest toys to compete, and hurl your chopstick for gold.

Should you find yourself hosting a Tiny Olympics - for action figures, marbles, or a hamster with something to prove - the chopstick is the regulation javelin. Throw it at nothing, in a large room, ideally with a rug.

How to do it

1. Grip around the middle, pointed end forward.
2. Take one step. A run-up in a living room ends badly.
3. Release at about 40 degrees above horizontal.
4. Measure the distance with unwarranted seriousness.

Why it works

A chopstick is heavier at the blunt end and tapers to a point, so it naturally flies blunt-end-first and pointed-end-trailing - the opposite of a real javelin, which is weighted at the tip. This is why yours will tumble and a real javelin doesn't. Around 40 degrees is still the theoretical optimum for range, and a real javelin is thrown shallower than that because aerodynamic lift, which yours emphatically does not have, changes the maths.