When Lucas Zhang, junior, walked into his AP Advanced Physics class, he was greeted with an odd sight.

“I saw a bunch of Barbies, and I thought ‘This is gonna be an interesting day’,” Zhang said. “That’s what I really like about the class: we don’t just do quizzes. It’s fun applications.”

The application in question was an experiment on Wednesday, Oct. 4, where students placed their Barbie on a perch, connected the Barbie to a spring and tried to drop it at the correct height so only the Barbie’s hair touched the ground. 

The dolls themselves were collected through donations.

Adam Sansom, physics teacher, loves performing this experiment with his students.

“It’s a lab that I started doing maybe 4-5 years ago, and every year I tweak it a little bit and keep bringing it back because it’s so good,” Sansom said.

One part of the lab that Sansom loves is how many different Barbies are used. 

“We had mermaid Barbies, Barbies that were heavier, Barbies that were lighter, so it threw the students off,” Sansom said. “Because for some of them, they looked over and they’re like, oh, that group found out that their height needed to be one and a half meters, but I’m getting 2 meters.”

Sansom said even students with an aptitude for physics were challenged.

“It’s kind of funny too because some of the top performers, student-wise in the class, tend to make mistakes with this lab because they’re overconfident. They get a little lazy with the details,” Sansom said.

Jackson Brusatti, senior, found immediate success.

“I got my drop first try,” Brusatti said

The Barbie lab is just one example of the experiments performed in the class.

“We did a friction lab using inclined carts as well,” Brusatti said. “The data we got was inconsistent, and I didn’t do as well as I would’ve hoped to on that one.”

But overall, Brusatti said he has been happy with Advanced Physics.

“I enjoy the class, although it is very challenging, and takes a big chunk of your homework time,” Brusatti said.