The
cat righting reflex
is a cat's innate ability to orient itself as it falls in orderto land on its feet. The
righting reflex begins to appear at 3
–4 weeks of age, and is perfected at 7 weeks. The minimumheight
required for this to occur in most cats would be around 30cm.
You are part of an engineering team trying to reproduce this ina mechanical cat. Your prototype, aptly
named Katt, when dropped motionless, upside down from 2.5 m, canright itself before it hits the ground
by rotating its “tail”. Katt’s body is a solid cy
linder 30 cm in length and 15 cm in diameter, with a mass of
3.0 kg. Attached to the center of one end of the body is Katt'stail, a 20
-cm long rod which extends out
perpendicular to Katt's body and has only 10% the mass of thebody. The tail will rotate due to a s
mall
electric motor in the body that produces a constant torque. Inorder to order the piece, determine the
angular speeds it will need to deal with.
